Contents
1. Preface
2. 1: A New World
1. 1. Adam Smith, The Results of Colonization (1776)
2. 2. Giovanni da Verrazano, Encountering Native Americans (1524)
3. 3. Bartolomé de las Casas on Spanish Treatment of the Indians, from History of the
Indies (1528)
4. 4. The Pueblo Revolt (1680)
5. 5. Father Jean de Bré beuf on the Customs and Beliefs of the Hurons (1635)
6. 6. Jewish Petition to the Dutch West India Company (1655)
3. 2: Beginnings of English America, 1607–1660
1. 7. Exchange between John Smith and Powhatan (1608)
2. 8. Sending Women to Virginia (1622)
3. 9. Henry Care, English Liberties (1680)
4. 10. John Winthrop, Speech to the Massachusetts General Court (1645)
5. 11. The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637)
6. 12. Roger Williams, Letter to the Town of Providence (1655)
7. 13. The Levellers, The Agreement of the People Presented to the Council of the Army
(1647)
4. 3: Creating Anglo-America, 1660–1750
1. 14. William Penn, Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges and Liberties (1701)
2. 15. Nathaniel Bacon on Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
3. 16. Letter by an Immigrant to Pennsylvania (1769)
4. 17. An Act Concerning Negroes and Other Slaves (1664)
5. 18. Benjamin Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind” (1751)
6. 19. Complaint of an Indentured Servant (1756)
7. 20. Women in the Household Economy (1709)
5. 4: Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle for Empire, to 1763
1. 21. An Act for the Encouragement of the Importation of White Servants (1698)
2. 22. Olaudah Equiano on Slavery (1789)
3. 23. Advertisements for Runaway Slaves and Servants (1738)
4. 24. The Independent Reflector on Limited Monarchy and Liberty (1752)
5. 25. The Trial of John Peter Zenger (1735)
6. 26. The Great Awakening Comes to Connecticut (1740)
7. 27. Pontiac, Two Speeches (1762 and 1763)
6. 5: The American Revolution, 1763–1783
1. 28. Virginia Resolutions on the Stamp Act (1765)
2. 29. New York Workingmen Demand a Voice in the Revolutionary Struggle (1770)
3. 30. Association of the New York Sons of Liberty (1773)
4. 31. Farmington, Connecticut, Resolutions on the Intolerable Acts (1774)
5. 32. Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
6. 33. Samuel Seabury’s Argument against Independence (1775)
7. 6: The Revolution Within
1. 34. Abigail and John Adams on Women and the American Revolution (1776)
2. 35. Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779)
3. 36. John Adams on the American Revolution (1818)
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
4. 37. Noah Webster on Equality (1787)
5. 38. Liberating Indentured Servants (1784)
6. 39. Letter of Phillis Wheatley (1774)
7. 40. Benjamin Rush, Thoughts upon Female Education (1787)
7: Founding a Nation, 1783–1791
1. 41. Petition of Inhabitants West of the Ohio River (1785)
2. 42. David Ramsey, American Innovations in Government (1789)
3. 43. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, “What, Then, Is the American?” (1782)
4. 44. James Winthrop, The Anti-Federalist Argument (1787)
5. 45. Thomas Jefferson on Race and Slavery (1781)
8: Securing the Republic, 1791–1815
1. 46. Benjamin F. Bache, A Defense of the French Revolution (1792–1793)
2. 47. Address of the Democratic-Republican Society of Pennsylvania (1794)
3. 48. Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes” (1790)
4. 49. Protest against the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
5. 50. George Tucker on Gabriel’s Rebellion (1801)
6. 51. Tecumseh, Speech to the Osage (1810)
7. 52. Felix Grundy, Battle Cry of the War Hawks (1811)
8. 53. Mercy Otis Warren on Religion and Virtue (1805)
9: The Market Revolution, 1800–1840
1. 54. Sarah Bagley, Freedom and Necessity at Lowell (1845)
2. 55. Joseph Smith, The Wentworth Letter (1842)
3. 56. Margaret McCarthy to Her Family in Ireland (1850)
4. 57. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” (1837)
5. 58. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
6. 59. Charles G. Finney, “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts” (1836)
10: Democracy in America, 1815–1840
1. 60. The Monroe Doctrine (1823)
2. 61. John Quincy Adams on the Role of the National Government (1825)
3. 62. Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Bank Bill (1832)
4. 63. Virginia Petition for the Right to Vote (1829)
5. 64. Appeal of the Cherokee Nation (1830)
6. 65. Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens (1838)
11: The Peculiar Institution
1. 66. Frederick Douglass on the Desire for Freedom (1845)
2. 67. The Proslavery Argument (1854)
3. 68. William Sewall, The Results of British Emancipation (1860)
4. 69. Rules of Highland Plantation (1838)
5. 70. Slavery and the Bible (1850)
6. 71. Letter by a Fugitive Slave (1840)
7. 72. Solomon Northup, The New Orleans Slave Market (1853)
12: An Age of Reform, 1820–1840
1. 73. Robert Owen, “The First Discourse on a New System of Society” (1825)
2. 74. Philip Schaff on Freedom as Self-Restraint (1855)
3. 75. David Walker’s Appeal (1829)
4. 76. Frederick Douglass on the Fourth of July (1852)
5. 77. Catharine Beecher on the “Duty of American Females” (1837)
6. 78. Angelina Grimké on Women’s Rights (1837)
7. 79. Protest Statement of Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell (1855)
13: A House Divided, 1840–1861
1. 80. John L. O’Sullivan, Manifest Destiny (1845)
2. 81. A Protest against Anti-Chinese Prejudice (1852)
3. 82. Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
4. 83. American Party Platform (1856)
5. 84. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, The Dred Scott Decision (1857)
6. 85. Texas Declaration of Independence (1836)
7. 86. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
8. 87. South Carolina Ordinance of Secession (1860)
15. 14: A New Birth of Freedom: The Civil War, 1861–1865
1. 88. Alexander H. Stephens, The Cornerstone of the Confederacy (1861)
2. 89. Marcus M. Spiegel, Letter of a Civil War Soldier (1864)
3. 90. Samuel S. Cox Condemns Emancipation (1862)
4. 91. A Defense of the Confederacy (1861)
5. 92. Frederick Douglass on Black Soldiers (1863)
6. 93. Letter by the Mother of a Black Soldier (1863)
7. 94. Abraham Lincoln, Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore (1864)
8. 95. Mary Livermore on Women and the War (1883)
16. 15: “What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction, 1865–1877
1. 96. Petition of Black Residents of Nashville (1865)
2. 97. Petition of Committee on Behalf of the Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865)
3. 98. The Mississippi Black Code (1865)
4. 99. A Sharecropping Contract (1866)
5. 100. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Home Life” (ca. 1875)
6. 101. Frederick Douglass, “The Composite Nation” (1869)
7. 102. Robert B. Elliott on Civil Rights (1874)
Preface
Voices of Freedom is a documentary history of American freedom from the earliest days of European
exploration and settlement of the Western Hemisphere to the present. I have prepared it as a
companion volume to Give Me Liberty!, my survey textbook of the history of the United States
centered on the theme of freedom. This sixth edition of Voices of Freedom is organized in chapters
that correspond to those in the sixth edition of the textbook. But it can also stand independently as a
documentary introduction to the history of American freedom. The two volumes include more than
twenty documents not available in the fifth edition.
No idea is more fundamental to Americans’ sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation than
freedom, or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably. The Declaration of
Independence lists liberty among mankind’s inalienable rights; the Constitution announces as its
purpose to secure liberty’s blessings. “Every man in the street, white, black, red or yellow,” wrote the
educator and statesman Ralph Bunche in 1940, “knows that this is ‘the land of the free’ . . . ‘the
cradle of liberty.’ ”
The very universality of the idea of freedom, however, can be misleading. Freedom is not a fixed,
timeless category with a single unchanging definition. Rather, the history of the United States is, in
part, a story of debates, disagreements, and struggles over freedom. Crises like the American
Revolution, the Civil War, and the Cold War have permanently transformed the idea of freedom. So
too have demands by various groups of Americans for greater freedom as they understood it.
In choosing the documents for Voices of Freedom, I have attempted to convey the multifaceted
history of this compelling and contested idea. The documents reflect how Americans at different
points in our history have defined freedom as an overarching idea, or have understood some of its
many dimensions, including political, religious, economic, and personal freedom. For each chapter, I
have tried to select documents that highlight the specific discussions of freedom that occurred during
that time period, and some of the divergent interpretations of freedom at each point in our history. I
hope that students will gain an appreciation of how the idea of freedom has expanded over time, and
how it has been extended into more and more areas of Americans’ lives. But at the same time, the
documents suggest how freedom for some Americans has, at various times in our history, rested on
lack of freedom—for example, slavery, indentured servitude, the subordinate position of women—
for others.
The documents that follow reflect the kinds of historical developments that have shaped and
reshaped the idea of freedom, including war, economic change, territorial expansion, social protest
movements, and international involvement. The selections try to convey a sense of the rich cast of
characters who have contributed to the history of American freedom. They include presidential
proclamations and letters by runaway slaves, famous court cases and obscure manifestos, ideas
dominant in a particular era and those of radicals and dissenters. They range from advertisements in
colonial newspapers seeking the return of runaway indentured servants and slaves to debates in the
early twentieth century over the definition of economic freedom, the controversy over the proposed
Equal Rights Amendment for women, and recent Supreme Court decisions dealing with the right of
gay Americans to marry one another.
I have been particularly attentive to how battles at the boundaries of freedom—the efforts of racial
minorities, women, and others to secure greater freedom—have deepened and transformed the
concept and extended it into new realms. In addition, in this sixth edition I have included a number
of new documents that illustrate how the very definition of American identity—answers to the
question “Who is an American?”—have affected the evolution of the idea of freedom. These include
Benjamin Franklin’s argument in 1751 for restricting immigration to English men and women; J.
Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s observations at the time of the War of Independence on the
emergence of the American, a “new man,” from the diverse peoples of European descent in the new
nation; Frederick Douglass’s remarkable “Composite Nation” speech soon after the Civil War;
Randolph Bourne’s 1916 essay “Trans-National America”; and historian Oscar Handlin’s critique of
the law adopted in 1924 that severely restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe.
All of the documents in this collection are “primary sources”—that is, they were written or spoken
by men and women enmeshed in the events of the past, rather than by later historians. They therefore
offer students the opportunity to encounter ideas about freedom in the actual words of participants in
the drama of American history. Some of the documents are reproduced in their entirety. Most are
excerpts from longer interviews, articles, or books. In editing the documents, I have tried to remain
faithful to the original purpose of the author, while highlighting the portion of a text that deals
directly with one or another aspect of freedom. In most cases, I have reproduced the wording of the
original texts exactly. But I have modernized the spelling and punctuation of some early documents
to make them more understandable to the modern reader. Each document is preceded by a brief
introduction that places it in historical context and is followed by two questions that highlight key
elements of the argument and may help to focus students’ thinking about the issues raised by the
author.
A number of these documents were suggested by students in a U.S. history class at Juniata College in
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, taught by Professor David Hsiung. I am very grateful to these students,
who responded enthusiastically to an assignment by Professor Hsiung that asked them to locate
documents that might be included in Voices of Freedom and to justify their choices with historical
arguments. Some of the documents are included in the online exhibition “Preserving American
Freedom” created by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Taken together, the documents in these volumes suggest the ways in which American freedom has
changed and expanded over time. But they also remind us that American history is not simply a
narrative of continual progress toward greater and greater freedom. While freedom can be achieved,
it may also be reduced or rescinded. It can never be taken for granted.
Eric Foner
CHAPTER 1
A New World
1. 1. Adam Smith, The Results of Colonization (1776)
2. 2. Giovanni da Verrazano, Encountering Native Americans (1524)
3. 3. Bartolomé de las Casas on Spanish Treatment of the Indians, from History of the Indies
(1528)
4. 4. The Pueblo Revolt (1680)
5. 5. Father Jean de Bré beuf on the Customs and Beliefs of the Hurons (1635)
6. 6. Jewish Petition to the Dutch West India Company (1655)
1. Adam Smith, The Results of
Colonization (1776)
Source: Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (London,
1776), vol. 2, pp. 190–91, 235–37.
“The discovery of America,” the Scottish writer Adam Smith announced in his celebrated work The
Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, was one of “the two greatest and most important events
recorded in the history of mankind.” Smith is regarded as the founder of modern economics. It is not
surprising that looking back nearly three centuries after the initial voyage of Christopher Columbus
in 1492, Smith focused primarily on the economic results of the conquest and colonization of North
and South America. The influx of goods from the New World, he insisted, greatly increased the
“enjoyments” of the people of Europe and the market for European goods. Nonetheless, Smith did
not fail to note the price paid by the indigenous population of the New World, who suffered a
dramatic decline in population due to epidemics, wars of conquest, and the exploitation of their
labor. “Benefits” for some, Smith observed, went hand in hand with “dreadful misfortunes” for
others—a fitting commentary on the long encounter between the Old and New Worlds.
OF THE ADVANTAGES which Europe has derived from the Discovery of America, and from that of a
Passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope
What are [the advantages] which Europe has derived from the discovery and colonization of
America?
The general advantages which Europe, considered as one great country, has derived from the
discovery and colonization of America, consist, first, in the increase of its enjoyments; and, secondly,
in the augmentation of its industry.
The surplus produce of America, imported into Europe, furnishes the inhabitants of this great
continent with a variety of commodities which they could not otherwise have possessed; some for
conveniency and use, some for pleasure, and some for ornament, and thereby contributes to increase
their enjoyments.
The discovery and colonization of America, it will readily be allowed, have contributed to augment
the industry, first, of all the countries which trade to it directly, such as Spain, Portugal, France, and
England; and, secondly, of all those which, without trading to it directly, send, through the medium
of other countries, goods to it of their own produce; such as Austrian Flanders, and some provinces
of Germany, which, through the medium of the countries before mentioned, send to it a considerable
quantity of linen and other goods. All such countries have evidently gained a more extensive market
for their surplus produce, and must consequently have been encouraged to increase its quantity. . . .
• • •
The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are
the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind. Their consequences
have already been very great; but, in the short period of between two and three centuries which has
elapsed since these discoveries were made, it is impossible that the whole extent of their
consequences can have been seen. What benefits or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter
result from those great events, no human wisdom can foresee. By uniting, in some measure, the most
distant parts of the world, by enabling them to relieve one another’s wants, to increase one another’s
enjoyments, and to encourage one another’s industry, their general tendency would seem to be
beneficial. To the natives however, both of the East and West Indies, all the commercial benefits
which can have resulted from those events have been sunk and lost in the dreadful misfortunes which
they have occasioned. . . .
• • •
In the meantime one of the principal effects of those discoveries has been to raise the mercantile
system to a degree of splendour and glory which it could never otherwise have attained to. It is the
object of that system to enrich a great nation rather by trade and manufactures than by the
improvement and cultivation of land, rather by the industry of the towns than by that of the country.
But, in consequence of those discoveries, the commercial towns of Europe, instead of being the
manufacturers and carriers for but a very small part of the world (that part of Europe which is
washed by the Atlantic Ocean, and the countries which lie round the Baltic and Mediterranean seas),
have now become the manufacturers for the numerous and thriving cultivators of America, and the
carriers and in some respects the manufacturers too, for almost all the different nations of Asia,
Africa, and America. Two new worlds have been opened to their industry, each of them much greater
and more extensive than the old one, and the market of one of them growing still greater and greater
every day.
Questions
1. According to Adam Smith, how did the “discovery and colonization” of America affect the
economic development of Europe?
2. Why does Smith believe that the “benefits” of colonization outweigh the “misfortunes”?
2. Giovanni da Verrazano, Encountering
Native Americans (1524)
Source: Giovanni da Verrazano, from The Voyages of Giovanni da Verrazano, 1524–1528,
Lawrence C. Wroth, ed., Susan Tarrow, trans. (1970), pp. 133–34, 137–38, 140–43. Copyright ©
1970 by Yale University Press. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press.
One of the first European explorers to encounter the Indians of eastern North America, Giovanni da
Verrazano was an Italian-born navigator who sailed in 1524 under the auspices of King Philip I of
France. His voyage took him from modern-day Cape Fear, North Carolina, north to the coast of
Maine. In the following excerpt from his diary, which he included in a letter to the king, Verrazano
tries to describe the appearance, economic life, customs, and beliefs of some of the region’s various
Native American groups. Some, he reports, were friendly and generous; others warlike and hostile.
He is particularly interested in their spiritual beliefs, concluding that they have “no religion.”
Verrazano found the east coast thickly populated. By the time English settlement began in the early
seventeenth century, many of the groups he encountered had been all but destroyed by epidemic
diseases.
SINCE THE STORM that we encountered in the northern regions, Most Serene King, I have not written
to tell your majesty of what happened to the four ships which you sent over the Ocean to explore new
lands, as I thought you had already been informed of everything—how we were forced by the fury of
the winds to return in distress to Brittany with only the Normandy and the Dauphine, and that after
undergoing repairs there, began our voyage with these two ships, equipped for war, following the
coasts of Spain, Your Most Serene Majesty will have heard; and then according to our new plan, we
continued the original voyage with only the Dauphine; now on our return from this voyage I will tell
Your Majesty of what we found. . . .
Seeing that the land continued to the south, we decided to turn and skirt it toward the north, where
we found the land we had sighted earlier. So we anchored off the coast and sent the small boat in to
land. We had seen many people coming to the seashore, but they fled when they saw us approaching;
several times they stopped and turned around to look at us in great wonderment. We reassured them
with various signs, and some of them came up, showing great delight at seeing us and marveling at
our clothes, appearance, and our whiteness; they showed us by various signs where we could most
easily secure the boat, and offered us some of their food. We were on land, and I shall now tell Your
Majesty briefly what we were able to learn of their life and customs.
They go completely naked except that around their loins they wear skins of small animals like
martens, with a narrow belt of grass around the body, to which they tie various rails of other animals
which hang down to the knees; the rest of the body is bare, and so is the head. Some of them wear
garlands of birds’ feathers. They are dark in color, not unlike the Ethiopians, with thick black hair,
not very long, tied back behind the head like a small tail. As for the physique of these men, they are
well proportioned, of medium height, a little taller than we are. They have broad chests, strong arms,
and the legs and other parts of the body are well composed. There is nothing else, except that they
tend to be rather broad in the face; but not all, for we saw many with angular faces. They have big
black eyes, and an attentive and open look. They are not very strong, but they have a sharp cunning,
and are agile and swift runners. From what we could tell from observation, in the last two respects
they resemble the Orientals. . . .
We reached another land 15 leagues from the island, where we found an excellent harbor; before
entering it, we saw about 20 boats full of people who came around the ship uttering various cries of
wonderment. They did not come nearer than fifty paces, but stopped to look at the structure of our
ship, our persons, and our clothes; then all together they raised a loud cry which meant that they were
joyful. We reassured them somewhat by imitating their gestures, and they came near enough for us to
throw them a few little bells and mirrors and many trinkets, which they took and looked at, laughing,
and then they confidently came on board ship. . . . These people are the most beautiful and have the
most civil customs that we have found on this voyage. They are taller than we are; they are a bronze
color, some tending more toward whiteness, others to a tawny color; the face is clear-cut; the hair is
long and black, and they take great pains to decorate it; the eyes are black and alert, and their manner
is sweet and gentle, very like the manner of the ancients. . . .
Their women are just as shapely and beautiful; very gracious, of attractive manner and pleasant
appearance; their customs and behavior follow womanly custom as far as befits human nature; they
go nude except for stag skin embroidered like the men’s, and some wear rich lynx skins on their
arms; their bare heads are decorated with various ornaments made of braids of their own hair which
hang down over their breasts on either side. . . . Both men and women have various trinkets hanging
from their ears as the Orientals do; and we saw that many had sheets of worked copper which they
prize more than gold. They do not value gold because of its color; they think it the most worthless of
all, and rate blue and red above all other colors. The things we gave them that they prized the most
were little bells, blue crystals, and other trinkets to put in the ear or around the neck. They did not
appreciate cloth of silk and gold, nor even of any other kind, nor did they care to have them; the
same was true for metals like steel and iron, for many times when we showed them some of our
arms, they did not admire them, nor ask for them, but merely examined the workmanship. They did
the same with mirrors; they would look at them quickly, and then refuse them, laughing.
They are very generous and give away all they have. We made great friends with them, and one day
before we entered the harbor with the ship, when we were lying at anchor one league out to sea
because of unfavorable weather, they came out to the ship with a great number of their boats; they
had painted and decorated their faces with various colors, showing us that it was a sign of happiness.
They brought us some of their food, and showed us by signs where we should anchor in the port for
the ship’s safety, and then accompanied us all the way until we dropped anchor. . . .
At a distance of fifty leagues, keeping more to the north, we found high country full of very dense
forests, composed of pines, cypresses, and similar trees which grow in cold regions.
The people were quite different from the others, for while the previous ones had been courteous in
manner, these were full of crudity and vices, and were so barbarous that we could never make any
communication with them, however many signs we made to them. They were clothed in skins of
bear, lynx, sea-wolf and other animals. As far as we could judge from several visits to their houses,
we think they live on game, fish, and several fruits which are a species of root which the earth
produces itself. . . . We saw no sign of cultivation, nor would the land be suitable for producing any
fruit or grain on account of its sterility. If we wanted to trade with them for some of their things, they
would come to the seashore on some rocks where the breakers were most violent, while we remained
in the little boat, and they sent us what they wanted to give on a rope, continually shouting at us not
to approach the land; they gave us the barter quickly, and would take in exchange only knives, hooks
for fishing and sharp metal. We found no courtesy in them, and when we had nothing more to
exchange and left them, the men made all the signs of scorn and shame that any brute creature would
make. Against their wishes, we penetrated two or three leagues inland with 25 armed men, and when
we disembarked on the shore, they shot at us with their bows and uttered loud cries before fleeing
into the woods. . . .
Due to a lack of [a common] language, we were unable to find out by signs or gestures how much
religious faith these people we found possess. We think they have neither religion nor laws, that they
do not know of a First Cause or Author, that they do not worship the sky, the stars, the sun, the
moon, or other planets, nor do they even practice any kind of idolatry; we do not know whether they
offer any sacrifices or other prayers, nor are there any temples or churches of prayer among their
peoples. We consider that they have no religion and that they live in absolute freedom, and that
everything they do proceeds from Ignorance; for they are very easily persuaded, and they imitated
everything that they saw us Christians do with regard to divine worship, with the same fervor and
enthusiasm that we had.
Questions
1. How much do Verrazano’s observations seem to be affected by his own beliefs and
experiences?
2. Why does he write that Indians live in “absolute freedom,” and why does he consider this a
criticism rather than a compliment?
3. Bartolomé de las Casas on Spanish
Treatment of the Indians, from History of
the Indies (1528)
Source: Bartolomé de las Casas, “History of the Indies (1528),” excerpt from History of the
Indies, trans. and ed. Andrée M. Collard (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 82, 112–15.
Copyright © 1971 by Andrée Collard, renewed 1999 by Joyce J. Contrucci. Reprinted by
permission of Joyce Contrucci.
Known as the “Apostle of the Indians,” Bartolomé de las Casas, a Catholic priest, was the most
eloquent critic of Spanish mistreatment of the New World’s native population. Las Casas took part in
the exploitation of Indian labor on Hispaniola and Cuba. But in 1514, he freed his Indian slaves and
began to preach against the injustices of Spanish rule. In his History of the Indies, Las Casas
denounced Spain for causing the deaths of millions of innocent people. The excerpt that follows
details events on Hispaniola, the Caribbean island first conquered and settled by Spain. Las Casas
called for the Indians to enjoy the rights of other subjects of Spain.
Largely because of Las Casas’s efforts, in 1542 Spain promulgated the New Laws, ordering that
Indians no longer be enslaved. But Spain’s European rivals seized upon Las Casas’s criticisms to
justify their own ambitions. His writings became the basis for the Black Legend, the image of Spain
as a uniquely cruel empire. Other nations would claim that their imperial ventures were inspired by
the desire to rescue Indians from Spanish rule.
IN THAT YEAR of 1500, . . . the King determined to send a new governor to Hispaniola, which at the
time was the only seat of government in the Indies. The new governor was fray Nicolás de Ovando,
Knight of Alcántara, and at that time comendador of Lares.
• • •
At first, the Indians were forced to stay six months away at work; later, the time was extended to
eight months and this was called a shift, at the end of which they brought all the gold for minting.
The King’s part was subtracted and the rest went to individuals, but for years no one kept a single
peso because they owed it all to merchants and other creditors, so that the anguish and torments
endured by the Indians in mining that infernal gold were consumed entirely by God and no one
prospered. During the minting period, the Indians were allowed to go home, a few days’ journey on
foot. One can imagine their state when they arrived after eight months, and those who found their
wives there must have cried, lamenting their condition together. How could they even rest, since they
had to provide for the needs of their family when their land had gone to weeds? Of those who had
worked in the mines, a bare 10 per cent survived to start the journey home. Many Spaniards had no
scruples about making them work on Sundays and holidays, if not in the mines then on minor tasks
such as building and repairing houses, carrying firewood, etc. They fed them cassava bread, which is
adequate nutrition only when supplemented with meat, fish or other more substantial food. The
minero killed a pig once a week but he kept more than half for himself and had the leftover
apportioned and cooked daily for thirty or forty Indians, which came to a bite of meat the size of a
walnut per individual, and they dipped the cassava in this as well as in the broth.
• • •
The comendador arranged to have wages paid as follows, which I swear is the truth: in exchange for
his life of services, an Indian received 3 maravedís every two days, less one-half a maravedí in order
not to exceed the yearly half gold peso, that is, 225 maravedís, paid them once a year as pin money
or cacona, as Indians call it, which means bonus or reward. This sum bought a comb, a small mirror
and a string of green or blue glass beads, and many did without that consolation for they were paid
much less and had no way of mitigating their misery, although in truth, they offered their labor up for
nothing, caring only to fill their stomachs to appease their raging hunger and find ways to escape
from their desperate lives. For this loss of body and soul, then, they received less than 3 maravedís
for two days; many years later their wages were increased to 1 gold peso by the order of King
Hernando, and this was no less an affront, as I will show later.
I believe the above clearly demonstrates that the Indians were totally deprived of their freedom and
were put in the harshest, fiercest, most horrible servitude and captivity which no one who has not
seen it can understand. Even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the fields.
But our Spaniards gave no such opportunity to Indians and truly considered them perpetual slaves,
since the Indians had not the free will to dispose of their persons but instead were disposed of
according to Spanish greed and cruelty, not as men in captivity but as beasts tied to a rope to prevent
free movement. When they were allowed to go home, they often found it deserted and had no other
recourse than to go out into the woods to find food and to die. When they fell ill, which was very
frequently because they are a delicate people unaccustomed to such work, the Spaniards did not
believe them and pitilessly called them lazy dogs, and kicked and beat them; and when illness was
apparent they sent them home as useless, giving them some cassava for the twenty- to eighty-league
journey. They would go then, falling into the first stream and dying there in desperation; others
would hold on longer but very few ever made it home. I sometimes came upon dead bodies on my
way, and upon others who were gasping and moaning in their death agony, repeating “Hungry,
hungry.” And this was the freedom, the good treatment and the Christianity that Indians received.
• • •
About eight years passed under the comendador’s rule and this disorder had time to grow; no one
gave it a thought and the multitude of people who originally lived on this island . . . was consumed at
such a rate that in those eight years 90 per cent had perished. From here this sweeping plague went to
San Juan, Jamaica, Cuba and the continent, spreading destruction over the whole hemisphere.
• • •
Questions
1. What do you think Las Casas hoped to accomplish by writing so critically about Spanish
treatment of the Indians?
2. Why, after describing illness and starvation among the Indians, does Las Casas write, “This
was the freedom, the good treatment and the Christianity that Indians received”?
4. The Pueblo Revolt (1680)
Source: Charles W. Hackett, “Declarations of Josephe and Pedro Naranjo,” in Revolt of the
Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Otermín’s Attempted Reconquest 1680–1682, vol. 2, pp.
238–48, 1942. Reprinted with permission of the University of New Mexico Press.
In 1680, the Pueblo Indians of modern-day New Mexico revolted against Spanish rule. During the
seventeenth century, governors, settlers, and missionaries had sought to exploit the labor of an Indian
population that declined from about 60,000 in 1600 to some 17,000 eighty years later. Franciscan
friars worked diligently, often violently, to convert Indians to Catholicism. Some natives accepted
baptism. But the friars’ efforts to stamp out traditional religious ceremonies in New Mexico—they
burned Indian idols, masks, and other sacred objects—alienated far more Indians than they
converted. Under the leadership of Popé, a local religious leader, the rebelling Indians killed 400
colonists, including twenty-one Franciscan missionaries. The Pueblo Revolt was the most complete
victory for Native Americans over Europeans and the only wholesale expulsion of settlers in the
history of North America. The uprising, concluded a royal attorney who interviewed survivors in
Mexico City, arose from the “many oppressions” the Indians had suffered. In 1692, the Spanish
launched an invasion that reconquered New Mexico.
DECLARATION OF JOSEPHE, SPANISH-SPEAKING INDIAN.
[PLACE OF THE RIO DEL NORTE, DECEMBER 19, 1681.]
Asked what causes or motives the said Indian rebels had for renouncing the law of God and
obedience to his Majesty, and for committing so many kinds of crimes, and who were the instigators
of the rebellion, and what he had heard while he was among the apostates, he said that the prime
movers of the rebellion were two Indians of San Juan, one named El Popé and the other El Taqu, and
another from Taos named Saca, and another from San Ildefonso named Francisco. He knows that
these were the principals, and the causes they gave were alleged ill treatment and injuries received
from the present secretary, Francisco Xavier, and the maestre de campo, Alonso García, and from the
sargentos mayores, Luis de Quintana and Diego López, because they beat them, took away what they
had, and made them work without pay. Thus he replies.
Asked if he has learned or it has come to his notice during the time that he has been here the reason
why the apostates burned the images, churches, and things pertaining to divine worship, making a
mockery and a trophy of them, killing the priests and doing the other things they did, he said that he
knows and has heard it generally stated that while they were besieging the villa the rebellious traitors
burned the church and shouted in loud voices, “Now the God of the Spaniards, who was their father,
is dead, and Santa Maria, who was their mother, and the saints, who were pieces of rotten wood,”
saying that only their own god lived. Thus they ordered all the temples and images, crosses and
rosaries burned, and this function being over, they all went to bathe in the rivers, saying that they
thereby washed away the water of baptism. For their churches, they placed on the four sides and in
the center of the plaza some small circular enclosures of stone where they went to offer flour,
feathers, and the seed of maguey, maize, and tobacco, and performed other superstitious rites, giving
the children to understand that they must all do this in the future. The captains and chiefs ordered that
the names of Jesus and of Mary should nowhere be uttered, and that they should discard their
baptismal names, and abandon the wives whom God had given them in matrimony, and take the ones
that they pleased. He saw that as soon as the remaining Spaniards had left, they ordered all the
estufas erected, which are their houses of idolatry, and danced throughout the kingdom the dance of
the cazina, making many masks for it in the image of the devil. Thus he replied to this question. . . .
Asked if he knows, or whether it has come to his notice, that the said apostates have erected houses
of idolatry which they call estufas in the pueblos, and have practiced dances and superstitions, he
said there is a general report throughout the kingdom that they have done so and he has seen many
houses of idolatry which they have built, dancing the dance of the cachina, which this declarant has
also danced. Thus he replied to the question.
DECLARATION OF PEDRO NARANJO OF THE QUERES
NATION.
[PLACE OF THE RÍO DEL NORTE, DECEMBER 19, 1681.]
Asked for what reason they so blindly burned the images, temples, crosses, and other things of divine
worship, he stated that the said Indian, Popé, came down in person, and with him El Saca and El
Chato from the pueblo of Los Taos, and other captains and leaders and many people who were in his
train, and he ordered in all the pueblos through which he passed that they instantly break up and burn
the images of the holy Christ, the Virgin Mary and the other saints, the crosses, and everything
pertaining to Christianity, and that they burn the temples, break up the bells, and separate from the
wives whom God had given them in marriage and take those whom they desired. In order to take
away their baptismal names, the water, and the holy oils, they were to plunge into the rivers and
wash themselves with amole, which is a root native to the country, washing even their clothing, with
the understanding that there would thus be taken from them the character of the holy sacraments.
They did this, and also many other things which he does not recall, given to understand that this
mandate had come from the Caydi and the other two who emitted fire from their extremities in the
said estufa of Taos, and that they thereby returned to the state of their antiquity, as when they came
from the lake of Copala; that this was the better life and the one they desired, because the God of the
Spaniards was worth nothing and theirs was very strong, the Spaniards’ God being rotten wood.
These things were observed and obeyed by all except some who, moved by the zeal of Christians,
opposed it, and such persons the said Popé caused to be killed immediately. He saw to it that they at
once erected and rebuilt their houses of idolatry which they call estufas, and made very ugly masks
in imitation of the devil in order to dance the dance of the cacina; and he said likewise that the devil
had given them to understand that living thus in accordance with the law of their ancestors, they
would harvest a great deal of maize, many beans, a great abundance of cotton, calabashes, and very
large watermelons and cantaloupes; and that they could erect their houses and enjoy abundant health
and leisure.
Questions
1. What actions did Indians take during the Pueblo Revolt to demonstrate their new freedom from
Spanish rule?
2. Why do you think religion played such a large role in the Pueblo Revolt?
5. Father Jean de Brébeuf on the Customs
and Beliefs of the Hurons (1635)
Source: Reuben G. Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and
Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610–1791 (Cleveland, 1896–1901), vol.
12, pp. 117–24.
The viability of New France, with its small white population and emphasis on the fur trade rather
than agricultural settlement, depended on friendly relations with local Indians. The French neither
appropriated substantial amounts of Indian land like the English nor conquered native inhabitants
militarily and set them to forced labor, as in Spanish America. The Jesuits, a missionary religious
order, sought to convert Indians to Catholicism. One of the Jesuit missionaries to the Huron people in
modern-day Quebec, Jean de Brébeuf, left a vivid description of the lives and customs of the Indians.
In the following excerpt, he dwells upon their religious beliefs, marriage customs, and gender
relations—all aspects of Indian life that seemed very alien to Europeans—and describes how he tried
to convert them. De Brébeuf was killed after being captured during a war between Hurons and
Iroquois in 1649.
IT REMAINS NOW to say something of the country, of the manners and customs of the Hurons, of the
inclination they have to the Faith, and of our insignificant labors.
As to the first, the little paper and leisure we have compels me to say in a few words what might
justly fill a volume. The Huron country is not large, its greatest extent can be traversed in three or
four days. Its situation is fine, the greater part of it consisting of plains. It is surrounded and
intersected by a number of very beautiful lakes or rather seas, whence it comes that the one to the
North and to the Northwest is called “fresh-water sea” [Lake Huron]. . . . There are twenty Towns,
which indicate about 30,000 souls speaking the same tongue, which is not difficult to one who has a
master. It has distinctions of genders, number, tense, person, moods; and, in short, it is very complete
and very regular, contrary to the opinion of many. . . .
It is so evident that there is a Divinity who has made Heaven and earth that our Hurons cannot
entirely ignore it. But they misapprehend him grossly. For they have neither Temples, nor Priests,
nor Feasts, nor any ceremonies.
They say that a certain woman called Eataensic is the one who made earth and man. They give her
an assistant, one named Jouskeha, whom they declare to be her little son, with whom she governs the
world. This Jouskeha has care of the living, and of the things that concern life, and consequently they
say that he is good. Eataensic has care of souls; and, because they believe that she makes men die,
they say that she is wicked. And there are among them mysteries so hidden that only the old men,
who can speak with authority about them, are believed.
This God and Goddess live like themselves, but without famine; make feasts as they do, are lustful as
they are; in short, they imagine them exactly like themselves. And still, though they make them
human and corporeal, they seem nevertheless to attribute to them a certain immensity in all places.
They say that this Eataensic fell from the Sky, where there are inhabitants as on earth, and when she
fell, she was with child. If you ask them who made the sky and its inhabitants, they have no other
reply than that they know nothing about it. And when we preach to them of one God, Creator of
Heaven and earth, and of all things, and even when we talk to them of Hell and Paradise and of our
other mysteries, the headstrong reply that this is good for our Country and not for theirs; that every
Country has its own fashions. But having pointed out to them, by means of a little globe that we had
brought, that there is only one world, they remain without reply.
I find in their marriage customs two things that greatly please me; the first, that they have only one
wife; the second, that they do not marry their relatives in a direct or collateral line, however distant
they may be. There is, on the other hand, sufficient to censure, were it only the frequent changes the
men make of their wives, and the women of their husbands.
They believe in the immortality of the soul, which they believe to be corporeal. The greatest part of
their Religion consists of this point. We have seen several stripped, or almost so, of all their goods,
because several of their friends were dead, to whose souls they had made presents. Moreover, dogs,
fish, deer, and other animals have, in their opinion, immortal and reasonable souls. In proof of this,
the old men relate certain fables, which they represent as true; they make no mention either of
punishment or reward, in the place to which souls go after death. And so they do not make any
distinction between the good and the bad, the virtuous and the vicious; and they honor equally the
interment of both, even as we have seen in the case of a young man who poisoned himself from the
grief he felt because his wife had been taken away from him. Their superstitions are infinite, their
feast, their medicines, their fishing, their hunting, their wars,—in short almost their whole life turns
upon this pivot; dreams, above all have here great credit.
As regards morals, the Hurons are lascivious, although in two leading points less so than many
Christians, who will blush some day in their presence. You will see no kissing nor immodest
caressing; and in marriage a man will remain two or three years apart from his wife, while she is
nursing. They are gluttons, even to disgorging; it is true, that does not happen often, but only in some
superstitious feasts,—these, however, they do not attend willingly. Besides they endure hunger much
better than we,—so well that after having fasted two or three entire days you will see them still
paddling, carrying loads, singing, laughing, bantering, as if they had dined well. They are very lazy,
are liars, thieves, pertinacious beggars. Some consider them vindictive; but, in my opinion, this vice
is more noticeable elsewhere than here.
We see shining among them some rather noble moral virtues. You note, in the first place, a great love
and union, which they are careful to cultivate by means of their marriages, of their presents, of their
feasts, and of their frequent visits. On returning from their fishing, their hunting, and their trading,
they exchange many gifts; if they have thus obtained something unusually good, even if they have
bought it, or if it has been given to them, they make a feast to the whole village with it. Their
hospitality towards all sorts of strangers is remarkable; they present to them, in their feasts, the best
of what they have prepared, and, as I have already said, I do not know if anything similar, in this
regard, is to be found anywhere. They never close the door upon a Stranger, and, once having
received him into their houses, they share with him the best they have; they never send him away,
and when he goes away of his own accord, he repays them by a simple “thank you.”
• • •
About the month of December, the snow began to lie on the ground, and the savages settled down
into the village. For, during the whole Summer and Autumn, they are for the most part either in their
rural cabins, taking care of their crops, or on the lake fishing, or trading; which makes it not a little
inconvenient to instruct them. Seeing them, therefore, thus gathered together at the beginning of this
year, we resolved to preach publicly to all, and to acquaint them with the reason of our coming into
their Country, which is not for their furs, but to declare to them the true God and his son, Jesus
Christ, the universal Saviour of our souls.
The usual method that we follow is this: We call together the people by the help of the Captain of the
village, who assembles them all in our house as in Council, or perhaps by the sound of the bell. I use
the surplice and the square cap, to give more majesty to my appearance. At the beginning we chant
on our knees the Pater noster, translated into Huron verse. Father Daniel, as its author, chants a
couplet alone, and then we all together chant it again; and those among the Hurons, principally the
little ones, who already know it, take pleasure in chanting it with us. That done, when every one is
seated, I rise and make the sign of the Cross for all; then, having recapitulated what I said last time, I
explain something new. After that we question the young children and the girls, giving a little bead
of glass or porcelain to those who deserve it. The parents are very glad to see their children answer
well and carry off some little prize, of which they render themselves worthy by the care they take to
come privately to get instruction. On our part, to arouse their emulation, we have each lesson
retraced by our two little French boys, who question each other,—which transports the Savages with
admiration. Finally the whole is concluded by the talk of the Old Men, who propound their
difficulties, and sometimes make me listen in my turn to the statement of their belief.
Two things among others have aided us very much in the little we have been able to do here, by the
grace of our Lord; the first is, as I have already said, the good health that God has granted us in the
midst of sickness so general and so widespread. The second is the temporal assistance we have
rendered to the sick. Having brought for ourselves some few delicacies, we shared them with them,
giving to one a few prunes, and to another a few raisins, to others something else. The poor people
came from great distances to get their share.
Questions
1. Which aspects of Indian practices and beliefs does de Brébeuf find admirable and which does
he criticize most strongly?
2. How do Huron gender and family relations seem to differ from those of Europeans?
6. Jewish Petition to the Dutch West India
Company (1655)
Source: Samuel Oppenheim, “The Early History of the Jews in New York City, 1654–1664,” in
Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society (1909), pp. 9–11.
Among European colonies in the seventeenth century, New Netherland was noted for religious
toleration, although its rulers made a careful distinction between private worship in a home, which
was allowed, and public worship, which was confined to the established Dutch Reformed church. In
1655, a group of Jews arrived from Brazil, from which they had been expelled after the Portuguese
wrested control of the colony from the Dutch. When Governor Petrus Stuyvesant ordered them to
leave, Jews in Amsterdam asked the Dutch West India Company to reverse the decision. The
company granted the request, so long as the newcomers did not become a public “charge”—that is,
require financial assistance.
TO THE HONORABLE Lords, Directors of the Chartered West India Company, Chamber of the City of
Amsterdam.
The merchants of the Portuguese Nation residing in this City respectfully remonstrate to your Honors
that it has come to their knowledge that your Honors raise obstacles to the giving of permits or
passports to the Portuguese Jews to travel and to go to reside in New Netherland, which if persisted
in will result to the great disadvantage of the Jewish nation. It also can be of no advantage to the
general Company but rather damaging.
There are many of the nation who have lost their possessions at Pernambuco [Brazil] and have
arrived from there in great poverty, and part of them have been dispersed here and there. So that your
petitioners had to expend large sums of money for their necessaries of life, and through lack of
opportunity all cannot remain here to live. And as they cannot go to Spain or Portugal because of the
Inquisition, a great part of the aforesaid people must in time be obliged to depart for other territories
of their High Mightinesses the States-General and their Companies, in order there, through their
labor and efforts, to be able to exist under the protection of the administrators of your Honorable
Directors, observing and obeying your Honors’ orders and commands.
It is well known to your Honors that the Jewish nation in Brazil have at all times been faithful and
have striven to guard and maintain that place, risking for that purpose their possessions and their
blood.
Yonder land is extensive and spacious. The more of loyal people that go to live there, the better it is
in regard to the population of the country as in regard to the payment of various excises and taxes
which may be imposed there, and in regard to the increase of trade, and also to the importation of all
the necessaries that may be sent there.
Your Honors should also consider that the Honorable Lords, the Burgomasters of the City and the
Honorable High Illustrious Mighty Lords, the States-General, have in political matters always
protected and considered the Jewish nation as upon the same footing as all the inhabitants and
burghers. Also it is conditioned in the treaty of perpetual peace with the King of Spain that the
Jewish nation shall also enjoy the same liberty as all other inhabitants of these lands.
Your Honors should also please consider that many of the Jewish nation are principal shareholders in
the Company. They having always striven their best for the Company, and many of their nation have
lost immense and great capital in its shares and obligations.
The Company has by a general resolution consented that those who wish to populate the Colony
shall enjoy certain districts of land gratis. Why should now certain subjects of this State not be
allowed to travel thither and live there? The French consent that the Portuguese Jews may traffic and
live in Martinique, Christopher and others of their territories, whither also some have gone from
here, as your Honors know. The English also consent at the present time that the Portuguese and
Jewish nation may go from London and settle at Barbados, whither also some have gone.
As foreign nations consent that the Jewish nation may go to live and trade in their territories, how
can your Honors forbid the same and refuse transportation to this Portuguese nation who reside here
and have been settled here well on to about sixty years, many also being born here and confirmed
burghers, and this to a land that needs people for its increase?
Therefore the petitioners request, for the reasons given above (as also others which they omit to
avoid prolixity), that your Honors be pleased not to exclude but to grant the Jewish nation passage to
and residence in that country; otherwise this would result in a great prejudice to their reputation. Also
that by an Apostille and Act the Jewish nation be permitted, together with other inhabitants, to travel,
live and traffic there, and with them enjoy liberty on condition of contributing like others, &c.
Questions
1. What does the petition tell us about the extent of religious toleration in the seventeenth
century?
2. How do the petitioners argue that allowing Jews to settle will benefit New Netherland?
CHAPTER 2
Beginnings of English America, 1607–
1660
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
7. Exchange between John Smith and Powhatan (1608)
8. Sending Women to Virginia (1622)
9. Henry Care, English Liberties (1680)
10. John Winthrop, Speech to the Massachusetts General Court (1645)
11. The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637)
12. Roger Williams, Letter to the Town of Providence (1655)
13. The Levellers, The Agreement of the People Presented to the Council of the Army (1647)
7. Exchange between John Smith and
Powhatan (1608)
Source: John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia . . . (London, 1624), pp. 74–76.
When English colonists arrived in Virginia in 1607, they landed in an area inhabited by more than
15,000 Indians, members of some thirty tribes loosely united in a confederacy whose leader the
settlers called Powhatan, the native word for both his tribe and the title of paramount chief. In a
history written in 1624, the English leader John Smith recalled his exchange with Powhatan sixteen
years earlier. Of course, Powhatan’s words are filtered through Smith’s memory. But the exchange
seems to capture differences in outlook between the two leaders.
THE 12 OF JANUARY we arrived at Werowocomoco. . . . Quartering in the next houses we found, we
sent to Powhatan for provision, who sent us plenty of bread, turkeys, and venison; the next day
having feasted us after his ordinary manner, he began to ask us when we would be gone, saying he
sent not for us, neither had he any corn; and his people much less, yet for forty swords he would
procure us forty baskets. . . . The King concluded the matter with a merry laughter, asking for our
commodities, but none he liked without guns and swords, valuing a basket of corn more precious
than a basket of copper, saying he would rate his corn, but not the copper.
Captain Smith seeing the intent of this subtle savage began to deal with him after this manner.
Powhatan, though I had many courses to have made my provision, yet believing your promises to
supply my wants, I neglected all to satisfy your desire, and to testify my life, I sent you my men for
your building, neglecting my own. What your people had you have engrossed, forbidding them our
trade, and now you think by consuming the time, we shall consume for want, not having to fulfill
your strange demands. As for swords and guns, I told you long ago I had none to spare, and you must
know those I have can keep me from want, yet steal or wrong you I will not, nor dissolve that
friendship we have mutually promised, except you constrain me by our bad usage.
The King having attentively listened to this discourse, promised that both he and his country would
spare him what he could, which within two days they should receive. Yet Captain Smith, said the
King, some doubt I have of your coming hither, that makes me not so kindly seek to relieve you as I
would, for many do inform me, your coming hither is not for trade, but to invade my people, and
possess my country, who dare not come to bring you corn, seeing you thus armed with your men. To
free us of this fear, leave abroad your weapons, for here they are useless, we being all friends, and for
ever Powhatan’s. . . .
While we expected the coming in of the country, we wrangled out of the King ten quarters of corn
for a copper kettle. . . . Wherewith each seemed well contented, and Powhatan began to expostulate
the difference of Peace and War after this manner.
Captain Smith, you may understand that I having seen the death of all my people thrice, and not any
one living of these three generations but myself, I know the difference of Peace and War better than
any in my country. But now I am old and ere long must die, my brethren, namely Opichapam,
Opechancanough, and Kekataugh, my two sisters, and their two daughters, are distinctly each others
successors. I wish their experience no less than mine, and your love to them no less than mine to you.
But this [rumor] that you are come to destroy my country, so much frightens all my people as they
dare not visit you. What will it avail you to take that by force you may quickly have by love, or to
destroy them that provide you food? What can you get by war, when we can hide our provisions and
fly to the woods, whereby you must famish by wronging us your friends. And why are you thus
jealous of our loves seeing us unarmed, and both do and are willing still to feed you, with that you
cannot get but by our laborers? Think you I am so simple, not to know it is better to eat good meat,
lie well, and sleep quietly with my women and children, laugh and be merry with you, have copper,
hatchets, or what I want being your friend, than be forced to fly from all, to lie cold in the woods,
feed upon acorns, roots, and such trash, and be so hunted by you, that I can neither rest, eat, nor
sleep, but my tired men must watch, and if a twig but break, every one cries there comes Captain
Smith. Then I must fly I know not where, and thus with miserable fear, end my miserable life,
leaving my pleasures to such youths as you. . . . Let this therefore assure you of our love, and every
year our friendly trade shall furnish you with corn, and now also, if you would come in friendly
manner to see us, and not this with your guns and swords as to invade your foes.
To this subtle discourse, [Smith] replied.
Seeing you will not rightly conceive of our words, we strive to make you know our thoughts by our
deeds; the vow I made you of my love, both myself and my men have kept. As for your promise I
find it every day violated by some of your subjects, yet we finding your love and kindness, our
custom is so far from being ungrateful, that for your sake only we have curbed our thirsting desire of
revenge, else had they known as well the cruelty we use to our enemies, as our true love and courtesy
to our friends. And I think your judgment sufficient to conceive, as well by the adventures we have
undertaken, as by the advantage we have (by our arms) of yours, that had we intended you any hurt,
long ere this we could have effected it.
Questions
1. What goods does each leader seek from the other?
2. How does the exchange illuminate some of the roots of conflict between settlers and Indians?
8. Sending Women to Virginia (1622)
Source: Susan Myra Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London
(Washington, D.C., 1906–35), vol. 1, pp. 256–57.
Early Virginia lacked one essential element of English society—stable family life. Given the demand
for male servants to work in the tobacco fields, for most of the seventeenth century men in the
Chesapeake outnumbered women by four or five to one. The Virginia Company avidly promoted the
immigration of women, sending “tobacco brides” to the colony in 1620 and 1621 for arranged
marriages (so-called because the husband was ordered to give a payment in tobacco to his wife). The
company preferred that the women marry only free, independent colonists. Unlike these women,
however, the vast majority of women who emigrated to the region in the seventeenth century came as
indentured servants. Since they usually had to complete their terms of service before marrying, they
did not begin to form families until their mid-twenties. Virginia remained for many years a society
with large numbers of single men, widows, and orphans rather than the family-oriented community
the company desired.
WE SEND YOU in this ship one widow and eleven maids for wives for the people in Virginia. There
hath been especial care had in the choice of them; for there hath not any one of them been received
but upon good commendations, as by a note herewith sent you may perceive. We pray you all
therefore in general to take them into your care; and more especially we recommend them to you
Master Pountis, that at their first landing they may be housed, lodged and provided for of diet till
they be married, for such was the haste of sending them away, as that straitened with time we had no
means to put provisions aboard, which defect shall be supplied by the magazine ship. And in case
they cannot be presently married, we desire they may be put to several householders that have wives
till they can be provided of husbands. There are near fifty more which are shortly to come, are sent
by our most honorable Lord and Treasurer the Earl of Southampton and certain worthy gentlemen,
who taking into their consideration that the Plantation can never flourish till families be planted and
the respect of wives and children fix the people on the soil, therefore have given this fair beginning,
for the reimbursing of whose charges it is ordered that every man that marries them give 120 lbs.
weight of the best leaf tobacco for each of them, and in case any of them die, that proportion must be
advanced to make it up upon those that survive. . . . And though we are desirous that marriage be free
according to the law of nature, yet would we not have these maids deceived and married to servants,
but only to freemen or tenants as have means to maintain them. We pray you therefore to be fathers
to them in this business, not enforcing them to marry against their wills; neither send we them to be
servants, save in case of extremity, for we would have their condition so much bettered as multitudes
may be allured thereby to come unto you. And you may assure such men as marry those women that
the first servants sent over by the Company shall be consigned to them, it being our intent to preserve
families and to prefer married men before single persons.
Questions
1. What advantages does the Virginia Company see in the promotion of family life in the colony?
2. Why does the company prefer that the women marry landowning men rather than servants?
9. Henry Care, English Liberties (1680)
Source: Henry Care, English Liberties: Or, The Free-Born Subject’s Inheritance (London,
1680), pp. 1–5.
The political battles of the seventeenth century ended with England enjoying a “mixed” or
“balanced” constitutional system in which the king continued to rule, but his power was restrained by
that of Parliament and by the rule of law. In 1680, in his book, English Liberties: Or, The Free-Born
Subject’s Inheritance, the writer Henry Care contrasted the government of England with democracy
on the one hand and unrestrained monarchy on the other, as represented by France and other
European countries. He described English government as “qualified monarchy,” and called it the best
political structure in the world.
Care was hardly egalitarian in outlook. He wrote of a society composed of “superior” and “inferior”
classes. But he insisted that the essence of English liberty was that all citizens were “guarded in their
persons and property by the fence of law,” and could not be subjected to imprisonment or loss of
property without being tried before a jury of their peers. By the 1680s, it had become a commonplace
that England was the freest nation on earth. Care claimed that the English were freer and happier
than any other people. The belief in freedom as the common heritage of all Englishmen and their
empire as the world’s guardian of liberty would help to legitimize English colonization in the
Western Hemisphere and to cast its imperial wars against Catholic France and Spain as struggles
between freedom and tyranny.
THE CONSTITUTION OF our English government (the best in the world) is no arbitrary tyranny like the
Turkish Grand Seignior’s, or the French King’s, whose wills (or rather lusts) dispose of the lives and
fortunes of their unhappy subjects; nor an Oligarchy where the great men (like fish in the ocean) prey
upon, and live by devouring the lesser at their pleasure. Nor yet a Democracy or popular state, much
less an Anarchy, where all confusedly are hail fellows well met. But a most excellently mixed or
qualified Monarchy, where the King is vested with large prerogatives sufficient to support majesty;
and restrained only from power of doing himself and his people harm, which would be contrary to
the end of all government . . . the nobility adorned with privileges to be a screen to majesty, and a
refreshing shade to their inferiors, and the commonality, too, so guarded in their persons and
properties by the fence of law, [which] renders them Freemen, not Slaves.
In France and other nations the mere will of the prince is law, his word takes off any man’s head,
imposes taxes, or seizes any man’s estate, when, how, and as often as he [wishes], and if one be
accused or but so much suspected of any crime, he may either presently execute him, or banish or
imprison him at pleasure. . . . Nay if there be no witnesses, yet he may be put to the rack, the tortures
thereof make an innocent person confess himself guilty. . . .
But in England, the law is both the measure and the bond of every subject’s duty and allegiance, each
man having a fixed fundamental right born with him as to the freedom of his person and property in
his estate, which he cannot be deprived of, but either by his consent, or some crime for which the law
has imposed such a penalty as forfeiture. . . .
This original happy frame of government is truly and properly called an Englishman’s liberty, a
privilege not to [be] exempt from the law, but to be freed in person and estate, from arbitrary
violence and oppression. . . . And this birthright of Englishmen shines most conspicuously in two
things: Parliaments [and] juries.
By the first, the subject has a share by his chosen representatives in the legislative (or law-making)
power, for no new laws bind the people of England, but such as are by common consent agreed on in
that great council.
By the second, he has a share in the executive part of the law, no causes being tried, nor any man
adjudged to lose life . . . or estate but upon the verdict of his peers (or equals). . . . These two grand
pillars of English liberty, are the fundamental vital privileges, whereby we have been and are
preserved more free and happy than any other people in the world.
Questions
1. Why does Henry Care consider the English system of government “the best in the world”?
2. How does Care define “an Englishman’s liberty”?
10. John Winthrop, Speech to the
Massachusetts General Court (1645)
Source: John Winthrop, Speech to the General Court of Massachusetts, July 3, 1645, in James
Savage, The History of New England from 1630 to 1649 by John Winthrop (Boston, 1825–26),
vol. 2, pp. 279–82.
The early settlers of New England were mainly Puritans, English Protestants who believed that the
Church of England in the early seventeenth century retained too many elements of Catholicism. Like
other emigrants to America, Puritans came in search of liberty, especially the right to worship and
govern themselves in what they deemed a Christian manner. Freedom for Puritans had nothing to do
with either religious toleration or unrestrained individual behavior. In a 1645 speech to the
Massachusetts legislature explaining the Puritan conception of freedom, Governor John Winthrop
distinguished sharply between two kinds of liberty. “Natural” liberty, or acting without restraint,
suggested “a liberty to [do] evil.” “Moral” liberty meant “a liberty to [do] that only which is good.” It
meant obedience to religious and governmental authority—following God’s law and the law of rulers
like Winthrop himself.
Winthrop’s distinction between “moral” and “natural” liberty has been invoked many times by
religious groups who feared that Americans were becoming selfish and immoral and who tried to
impose their moral standards on society as a whole.
• • •
THE GREAT QUESTIONS that have troubled the country, are about the authority of the magistrates and
the liberty of the people. It is yourselves who have called us to this office, and being called by you,
we have our authority from God, in way of an ordinance, such as hath the image of God eminently
stamped upon it, the contempt and violation whereof hath been vindicated with examples of divine
vengeance. I entreat you to consider, that when you choose magistrates, you take them from among
yourselves, men subject to like passions as you are. Therefore when you see infirmities in us, you
should reflect upon your own, and that would make you bear the more with us, and not be severe
censurers of the failings of your magistrates, when you have continual experience of the like
infirmities in yourselves and others. We account him a good servant, who breaks not his covenant.
The covenant between you and us is the oath you have taken of us, which is to this purpose, that we
shall govern you and judge your causes by the rules of God’s laws and our own, according to our
best skill. When you agree with a workman to build you a ship or house, etc., he undertakes as well
for his skill as for his faithfulness, for it is his profession, and you pay him for both. But when you
call one to be a magistrate, he doth not profess nor undertake to have sufficient skill for that office,
nor can you furnish him with gifts, etc., therefore you must run the hazard of his skill and ability. But
if he fail in faithfulness, which by his oath he is bound unto, that he must answer for. If it fall out that
the case be clear to common apprehension, and the rule clear also, if he transgress here, the error is
not in the skill, but in the evil of the will: it must be required of him. But if the case be doubtful, or
the rule doubtful, to men of such understanding and parts as your magistrates are, if your magistrates
should err here, yourselves must bear it.
For the other point concerning liberty, I observe a great mistake in the country about that. There is a
twofold liberty, natural (I mean as our nature is now corrupt) and civil or federal. The first is
common to man with beasts and other creatures. By this, man, as he stands in relation to man simply,
hath liberty to do what he lists; it is a liberty to evil as well as to good. This liberty is incompatible
and inconsistent with authority, and cannot endure the least restraint of the most just authority. The
exercise and maintaining of this liberty makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worse than
brute beasts. . . . This is that great enemy of truth and peace, that wild beast, which all the ordinances
of God are bent against, to restrain and subdue it. The other kind of liberty I call civil or federal, it
may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and
the politic covenants and constitutions, amongst men themselves. This liberty is the proper end and
object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just,
and honest. This liberty you are to stand for, with the hazard (not only of your goods, but) of your
lives, if need be. Whatsoever crosseth this, is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is
maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority; it is of the same kind of liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free. The woman’s own choice makes such a man her husband; yet
being so chosen, he is her lord, and she is to be subject to him, yet in a way of liberty, not of
bondage; and a true wife accounts her subjection her honor and freedom, and would not think her
condition safe and free, but in her subjection to her husband’s authority. Such is the liberty of the
church under the authority of Christ, her king and husband; his yoke is so easy and sweet to her as a
bride’s ornaments; and if through forwardness or wantonness, etc., she shake it off, at any time, she
is at no rest in her spirit, until she take it up again; and whether her lord smiles upon her, and
embraceth her in his arms, or whether he frowns, or rebukes, or smites her, she apprehends the
sweetness of his love in all, and is refreshed, supported, and instructed by every such dispensation of
his authority over her. On the other side, ye know who they are that complain of this yoke and say,
let us break their bands, etc., we will not have this man to rule over us. Even so, brethren, it will be
between you and your magistrates. If you stand for your natural corrupt liberties, and will do what is
good in your own eyes, you will not endure the least weight of authority, but will murmur, and
oppose, and be always striving to shake off that yoke; but if you will be satisfied to enjoy such civil
and lawful liberties, such as Christ allows you, then will you quietly and cheerfully submit unto that
authority which is set over you, in all the administrations of it, for your good. Wherein, if we fail at
anytime, we hope we shall be willing (by God’s assistance) to hearken to good advice from any of
you, or in any other way of God; so shall your liberties be preserved, in upholding the honor and
power of authority amongst you.
Questions
1. Why does Winthrop use an analogy to the status of women within the family to explain his
understanding of liberty?
2. Why does Winthrop consider “natural” liberty dangerous?
11. The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637)
Source: Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay:
Volume II, edited by Lawrence Shaw Mayo, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
Copyright © 1936 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1964 by
Lawrence Shaw Mayo.
A midwife and the daughter of a clergyman, Anne Hutchinson arrived in Massachusetts with her
husband in 1634. She began holding meetings in her home where she led discussions of religious
issues. Hutchinson charged that most of the ministers in Massachusetts were guilty of faulty
preaching by distinguishing “saints” predestined to go to Heaven from the damned through activities
such as church attendance and moral behavior rather than by an inner state of grace.
In 1637, Hutchinson was placed on trial before a civil court for sedition (expressing opinions
dangerous to authority). Hutchinson’s examination by John Winthrop and deputy governor Thomas
Dudley, excerpted below, is a classic example of the collision between established power and
individual conscience. For a time, Hutchinson more than held her own. But when she spoke of divine
revelations, of God speaking to her directly rather than through ministers or the Bible, she violated
Puritan doctrine and sealed her own fate. Hutchinson and a number of her followers were banished.
TRIAL AT THE COURT AT NEWTON. 1637
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Mrs. Hutchinson, you are called here as one of those that have troubled
the peace of the commonwealth and the churches here; you are known to be a woman that hath had a
great share in the promoting and divulging of those opinions that are the cause of this trouble, and to
be nearly joined not only in affinity and affection with some of those the court had taken notice of
and passed censure upon, but you have spoken divers things, as we have been informed, very
prejudicial to the honour of the churches and ministers thereof, and you have maintained a meeting
and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not
tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex, and notwithstanding that was cried
down you have continued the same. Therefore we have thought good to send for you to understand
how things are, that if you be in an erroneous way we may reduce you that so you may become a
profitable member here among us. Otherwise if you be obstinate in your course that then the court
may take such course that you may trouble us no further. Therefore I would intreat you to express
whether you do assent and hold in practice to those opinions and factions that have been handled in
court already, that is to say, whether you do not justify Mr. Wheelwright’s sermon and the petition.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: I am called here to answer before you but I hear no things laid to my
charge.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: I have told you some already and more I can tell you.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: Name one, Sir.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Have I not named some already?
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: What have I said or done?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Why for your doings, this you did harbor and countenance those that
are parties in this faction that you have heard of.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: That’s matter of conscience, Sir.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Your conscience you must keep, or it must be kept for you.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: Must not I then entertain the saints because I must keep my
conscience.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Say that one brother should commit felony or treason and come to his
brother’s house, if he knows him guilty and conceals him he is guilty of the same. It is his conscience
to entertain him, but if his conscience comes into act in giving countenance and entertainment to him
that hath broken the law he is guilty too. So if you do countenance those that are transgressors of the
law you are in the same fact.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: What law do they transgress?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: The law of God and of the state.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: In what particular?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Why in this among the rest, whereas the Lord doth say honour thy
father and thy mother.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: Ey Sir in the Lord.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: This honour you have broke in giving countenance to them.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: In entertaining those did I entertain them against any act (for there
is the thing) or what God has appointed?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: You knew that Mr. Wheelwright did preach this sermon and those that
countenance him in this do break a law.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: What law have I broken?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Why the fifth commandment.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: I deny that for he (Mr. Wheelwright) saith in the Lord.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: You have joined with them in the faction.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: In what faction have I joined with them?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: In presenting the petition.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: Suppose I had set my hand to the petition. What then?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: You saw that case tried before.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: But I had not my hand to (not signed) the petition.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: You have councelled them.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: Wherein?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Why in entertaining them.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: What breach of law is that, Sir?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Why dishonouring the commonwealth, Mrs. Hutchinson.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: But put the case, Sir, that I do fear the Lord and my parents. May
not I entertain them that fear the Lord because my parents will not give me leave?
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: If they be the fathers of the commonwealth, and they of another
religion, if you entertain them then you dishonour your parents and are justly punishable.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: If I entertain them, as they have dishonoured their parents I do.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: No but you by countenancing them above others put honor upon them.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: I may put honor upon them as the children of God and as they do
honor the Lord.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: We do not mean to discourse with those of your sex but only this: you
so adhere unto them and do endeavor to set forward this faction and so you do dishonour us.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: I do acknowledge no such thing. Neither do I think that I ever put
any dishonour upon you.
• • •
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Your course is not to be suffered for. Besides that we find such a
course as this to be greatly prejudicial to the state. Besides the occasion that it is to seduce many
honest persons that are called to those meetings and your opinions being known to be different from
the word of God may seduce many simple souls that resort unto you. Besides that the occasion which
hath come of late hath come from none but such as have frequented your meetings, so that now they
are flown off from magistrates and ministers and since they have come to you. And besides that it
will not well stand with the commonwealth that families should be neglected for so many neighbors
and dames and so much time spent. We see no rule of God for this. We see not that any should have
authority to set up any other exercises besides what authority hath already set up and so what hurt
comes of this you will be guilty of and we for suffering you.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: Sir, I do not believe that to be so.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Well, we see how it is. We must therefore put it away from you or
restrain you from maintaining this course.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: If you have a rule for it from God’s word you may.
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: We are your judges, and not you ours and we must compel you to it.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: If it please you by authority to put it down I will freely let you for I
am subject to your authority. . . .
• • •
DEPUTY GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: I would go a little higher with Mrs. Hutchinson. About
three years ago we were all in peace. Mrs. Hutchinson, from that time she came hath made a
disturbance, and some that came over with her in the ship did inform me what she was as soon as she
was landed. I being then in place dealt with the pastor and teacher of Boston and desired them to
enquire of her, and then I was satisfied that she held nothing different from us. But within half a year
after, she had vented divers of her strange opinions and had made parties in the country, and at length
it comes that Mr. Cotton and Mr. Vane were of her judgment, but Mr. Cotton had cleared himself
that he was not of that mind.
• • •
But now it appears by this woman’s meeting that Mrs. Hutchinson hath so forestalled the minds of
many by their resort to her meeting that now she hath a potent party in the country. Now if all these
things have endangered us as from that foundation and if she in particular hath disparaged all our
ministers in the land that they have preached a covenant of works, and only Mr. Cotton a covenant of
grace, why this is not to be suffered, and therefore being driven to the foundation and it being found
that Mrs. Hutchinson is she that hath depraved all the ministers and hath been the cause of what is
fallen out, why we must take away the foundation and the building will fall.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: I pray, Sir, prove it that I said they preached nothing but a covenant
of works.
DEP. GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: Nothing but a covenant of works. Why a Jesuit may preach truth
sometimes.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: Did I ever say they preached a covenant of works then?
DEP. GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: If they do not preach a covenant of grace clearly, then they
preach a covenant of works.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: No, Sir. One may preach a covenant of grace more clearly than
another, so I said. . . .
DEP. GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: When they do preach a covenant of works do they preach truth?
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: Yes, Sir. But when they preach a covenant of works for salvation,
that is not truth.
DEP. GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: Ask you this: when the ministers do preach a covenant of works
do they preach a way of salvation?
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: I did not come hither to answer questions of that sort.
DEP. GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: Because you will deny the thing.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: Ey, but that is to be proved first.
DEP. GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: I will make it plain that you did say that the ministers did preach
a covenant of works.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: I deny that.
DEP. GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: And that you said they were not able ministers of the New
Testament, but Mr. Cotton only.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: If ever I spake that I proved it by God’s word.
• • •
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: If you please to give me leave I shall give round of what I know to
be true. Being much troubled to see the falseness of the constitution of the Church of England, I had
like to have turned Separatist. Whereupon I kept a day of solemn humiliation and pondering of the
thing; this scripture was brought unto me—he that denies Jesus Christ to be come in the flesh is
antichrist. This I considered of and in considering found that the papists did not deny him to be come
in the flesh, nor we did not deny him—who then was antichrist? Was the Turk antichrist only? The
Lord knows that I could not open scripture; he must by his prophetical office open it unto me. So
after that being unsatisfied in the thing, the Lord was pleased to bring this scripture out of the
Hebrews. He that denies the testament denies the testator, and in this did open unto me and give me
to see that those which did not teach the new covenant had the spirit of antichrist, and upon this he
did discover the ministry unto me; and ever since, I bless the Lord, he hath let me see which was the
clear ministry and which the wrong.
Since that time I confess I have been more choice and he hath left me to distinguish between the
voice of my beloved and the voice of Moses, the voice of John the Baptist and the voice of antichrist,
for all those voices are spoken of in scripture. Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my
conscience I know to be truth I must commit myself unto the Lord.
MR. NOWEL (ASSISTANT TO THE COURT): How do you know that was the spirit?
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: How did Abraham know that it was God that bid him offer his son,
being a breach of the sixth commandment?
DEP. GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: By an immediate voice.
MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON: So to me by an immediate revelation.
DEP. GOV. THOMAS DUDLEY: How! an immediate revelation.
• • •
GOV. JOHN WINTHROP: Mrs. Hutchinson, the sentence of the court you hear is that you are
banished from out of our jurisdiction as being a woman not fit for our society, and are to be
imprisoned till the court shall send you away.
Questions
1. What seem to be the major charges against Anne Hutchinson?
2. What does the Hutchinson case tell us about how Puritan authorities understood the idea of
religious freedom?
12. Roger Williams, Letter to the Town of
Providence (1655)
Source: Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson, eds., The Puritans (2 vols.: New York, 1963), vol.
1, p. 225.
Roger Williams, the son of a London merchant, studied at Cambridge University and emigrated to
New England in 1631. He is considered one of the founders of the principle of religious toleration.
Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony after preaching that the colonists must
not occupy Indian land without first purchasing it, and that the government had no right to punish
individuals for their religious beliefs. He went on to found the community of Providence, Rhode
Island. After traveling to England and returning to Providence in 1654, he found it torn by
dissension, with some settlers refusing to accept civil authority at all. Williams published the
following letter, explaining his view of the extent and limits of liberty. He made it clear that while no
one should be forced to follow any particular religious belief, this did not lessen the requirement that
all members of a community must obey the “masters and officers” in charge of civil matters.
THAT EVER I SHOULD SPEAK or write a tittle, that tends to . . . an infinite liberty of conscience, is a
mistake, and which I have ever disclaimed and abhorred. To prevent such mistakes, I shall at present
only propose this case: There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose
weal or woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or a human combination or
society. It hath fallen out sometimes, that both papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks [Muslims],
may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal I affirm, that all the liberty of conscience, that
ever I pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges—that none of the papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks,
be forced to come to the ship’s prayers or worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers
or worship, if they practice any. I further add, that I never denied, that notwithstanding this liberty,
the commander of this ship ought to command the ship’s course, yea, and also command that justice,
peace and sobriety, be kept and practiced, both among the seamen and all the passengers. If any of
the seamen refuse to perform their services, or passengers to pay their freight; if any refuse to help,
in person or purse, towards the common charges or defense; if any refuse to obey the common laws
and orders of the ship, concerning their common peace or preservation; if any shall mutiny and rise
up against their commanders and officers; if any should preach or write that there ought to be no
commanders or officers, because all are equal in Christ, therefore no masters nor officers, no laws
nor orders, nor corrections nor punishments;—I say, I never denied, but in such cases, whatever is
pretended, the commander or commanders may judge, resist, compel and punish such transgressors,
according to their deserts and merits. This if seriously and honestly minded, may, if it so please the
Father of lights, let in some light to such as willingly shut not their eyes.
ROGER WILLIAMS
Questions
1. In what ways does Williams place limits on liberty?
2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Williams’s analogy between civil society and a
group of people aboard a ship?
13. The Levellers, The Agreement of the
People Presented to the Council of the
Army (1647)
Source: The Agreement of the People Presented to the Council of the Army (London, 1647).
During the 1640s, the battle for political supremacy in England between the Stuart monarchs James I
and Charles I and Parliament culminated in civil war, the temporary overthrow of the monarchy, and,
in 1649, the execution of Charles I. This struggle produced an intense public debate over the concept
of English freedom. In 1647, the Levellers, history’s first democratic political movement, proposed a
written constitution, the Agreement of the People, which began by proclaiming “at how high a rate
we value our just freedom.” At a time when “democracy” was still widely seen as the equivalent of
anarchy and disorder, the document proposed to abolish the monarchy and House of Lords and
greatly expand the right to vote. It called for religious freedom and equality before the law for all
Englishmen.
The Levellers were soon suppressed. But the Agreement of the People offered a glimpse of the
modern, democratic definition of freedom as a universal entitlement in a society based on equal
rights, rather than the traditional idea of “liberties” as a collection of limited rights defined by social
class, with some groups enjoying far more than others.
AN AGREEMENT OF the People for a firm and present peace upon grounds of common right.
Having by our late labors and hazards made it appear to the world at how high a rate we value our
just freedom, and God having so far owned our cause as to deliver the enemies thereof into our
hands, we do now hold ourselves bound in mutual duty to each other to take the best care we can for
the future to avoid both the danger of returning into a slavish condition and the chargeable remedy of
another war; for, as it cannot be imagined that so many of our countrymen would have opposed us in
this quarrel if they had understood their own good, so may we safely promise to ourselves that, when
our common rights and liberties shall be cleared, their endeavors will be disappointed that seek to
make themselves our masters. Since, therefore, our former oppressions and scarce-yet-ended troubles
have been occasioned, either by want of frequent national meetings in Council, or by rendering those
meetings ineffectual, we are fully agreed and resolved to provide that hereafter our representatives be
neither left to an uncertainty for the time nor made useless to the ends for which they are intended. In
order whereunto we declare:
I
That the people of England, being at this day very unequally distributed by Counties, Cities and
Boroughs for the election of their deputies in Parliament, ought to be more indifferently
proportioned, according to the number of the inhabitants; the circumstances whereof for number,
place, and manner are to be set down before the end of this present Parliament.
II
That, to prevent the many inconveniences apparently arising from the long continuance of the same
persons in authority, this present Parliament be dissolved upon the last day of September which shall
be in the year of our Lord 1648.
III
That the people do, of course, choose themselves a Parliament once in two years, viz. upon the first
Thursday in every second March, after the manner as shall be prescribed before the end of this
Parliament, to begin to sit upon the first Thursday in April following, at Westminster or such other
place as shall be appointed from time to time by the preceding Representatives, and to continue till
the last day of September then next ensuing, and no longer.
IV
That the power of this, and all future Representatives of this Nation, is inferior only to theirs who
choose them, and doth extend, without the consent or concurrence of any other person or persons, to
the enacting, altering, and repealing of laws; to the erecting and abolishing of offices and courts; to
the appointing, removing, and calling to account magistrates and officers of all degrees; to the
making war and peace; to the treating with foreign states; and, generally, to whatsoever is not
expressly or impliedly reserved by the represented to themselves:
Which are as followeth,
1. That matters of religion and the ways of God’s worship are not at all entrusted by us to any
human power, because therein we cannot remit or exceed a title of what our consciences
dictate to be the mind of God, without wilful sin; nevertheless the public way of instructing the
nation (so it be not compulsive) is referred to their discretion.
2. That the matter of impressing and constraining any of us to serve in the wars is against our
freedom; and therefore we do not allow it in our Representatives; the rather, because money
(the sinews of war), being always at their disposal, they can never want numbers of men apt
enough to engage in any just cause.
3. That after the dissolution of this present Parliament, no person be at any time questioned for
anything said or done in reference to the late public differences, otherwise than in execution of
the judgments of the present Representatives, or House of Commons.
4. That in all laws made or to be made every person may be bound alike, and that no tenure,
estate, charter, degree, birth, or place do confer any exemption from the ordinary course of
legal proceedings whereunto others are subjected.
5. That as the laws ought to be equal, so they must be good, and not evidently destructive to the
safety and well-being of the people.
These things we declare to be our native rights, and therefore are agreed and resolved to maintain
them with our utmost possibilities against all opposition whatsoever; being compelled thereunto not
only by the examples of our ancestors, whose blood was often spent in vain for the recovery of their
freedoms, suffering themselves through fraudulent accommodations to be still deluded of the fruit of
their victories, but also by our own woeful experience, who, having long expected and dearly earned
the establishment of these certain rules of government, are yet made to depend for the settlement of
our peace and freedom upon him that intended our bondage and brought a cruel war upon us.
Questions
1. What are the Levellers criticizing when they propose that “in all laws made or to be made
every person may be bound alike”?
2. What are the main rights that the Levellers are aiming to protect?
CHAPTER 3
Creating Anglo-America, 1660–1750
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
14. William Penn, Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges and Liberties (1701)
15. Nathaniel Bacon on Bacon’s Rebellion (1676)
16. Letter by an Immigrant to Pennsylvania (1769)
17. An Act Concerning Negroes and Other Slaves (1664)
18. Benjamin Franklin, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind” (1751)
19. Complaint of an Indentured Servant (1756)
20. Women in the Household Economy (1709)
14. William Penn, Pennsylvania Charter of
Privileges and Liberties (1701)
Source: Francis N. Thorpe, The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other
Organic Laws . . . (7 vols.: Washington, D.C., 1909), vol. 5, pp. 3076–81.
The last English colony to be established in the seventeenth century was Pennsylvania, founded in
1680 by William Penn. A devout member of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, Penn envisioned the
colony as a place where those facing religious persecution in Europe could enjoy spiritual freedom.
Quakers held that the spirit of God dwelled within all people, not just the elect, and that this “inner
light,” rather than the Bible or teachings of the clergy, offered the surest guidance in spiritual
matters. Thus, the government had no right to enforce any particular form of religious worship.
Penn drew up a Frame of Government in 1682 but it proved unworkable and in 1701 was replaced
with a Charter of Liberties that established a political system that lasted until the American
Revolution. Its first clause restated Penn’s cherished principle of religious toleration, although it
limited officeholding to Christians. It also established an elected legislature and promised that
colonists would enjoy the same rights as “free-born subjects of England.”
KNOW YE . . . That for the further Well-being and good Government of the said Province, and
Territories; . . . I the said William Penn do declare, grant and confirm, unto all the Freemen, Planters
and Adventurers, and other Inhabitants of this Province and Territories, these following Liberties,
Franchises and Privileges . . .
Because no People can be truly happy, though under the greatest enjoyment of civil liberties, if
abridged of the freedom of their consciences, as to their religious profession and worship: And
Almighty God being the only Lord of Conscience, Father of Lights and Spirits; and the Author as
well as object of all divine knowledge, faith and worship, who only doth enlighten the Minds, and
persuade and convince the understandings of people, I do hereby grant and declare, that no person or
persons, inhabiting in this Province or Territories, who shall confess and acknowledge One almighty
God, the Creator, Upholder and Ruler of the World; and profess him or themselves obliged to live
quietly under the Civil Government, shall be in any case molested or prejudiced, in his or their
person or estate, because of his or their conscientious persuasion or practice, nor be compelled to
frequent or maintain any religious worship, place or ministry, contrary to his or their mind, or to do
or suffer any other act or thing, contrary to their religious persuasion.
And that all persons who also profess to believe in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World, shall be
capable (notwithstanding their other persuasions and practices in point of conscience and religion) to
serve this Government in any capacity, both legislatively and executively. . . .
For the well governing of this Province and Territories, there shall be an Assembly yearly chosen, by
the freemen thereof, to consist of four persons out of each county, of most note for virtue, wisdom
and ability, . . . which Assembly shall have power to choose a Speaker and other officers; . . . prepare
Bills in order to pass into Laws; impeach criminals, and redress grievances; and shall have all other
powers and privileges of an Assembly, according to the rights of the free-born subjects of England.
Questions
1. What are Penn’s arguments in favor of religious liberty?
2. Why does the document refer to “the rights of the free-born subjects of England”?
15. Nathaniel Bacon on Bacon’s Rebellion
(1676)
Source: Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 1 (1894), pp. 55–61.
The largest popular revolt in the early English colonies was Bacon’s Rebellion, which occurred in
Virginia in 1676. For thirty years, Governor William Berkeley had run a corrupt regime in alliance
with an inner circle of tobacco planters, while heavy taxes reduced the prospects of small farmers.
His refusal to allow white settlement in areas reserved for Indians angered colonists who saw
landownership as central to freedom.
After a minor confrontation between Indians and settlers on Virginia’s western frontier, settlers
demanded that the governor authorize the extermination or removal of the colony’s Indians to open
more land for whites. Berkeley refused. An uprising began that quickly grew into a full-fledged
rebellion. The leader, Nathaniel Bacon, was himself a wealthy and ambitious planter. But his call for
the removal of all Indians from the colony, a reduction of taxes, and an end to rule by “grandees”
rapidly gained support from small farmers, landless men, indentured servants, and even some slaves.
Bacon’s “manifesto,” which follows, outlined the rebels’ complaints against the governor and the
colony’s “protected and darling Indians.” The uprising failed. But the frightened authorities reduced
taxes and adopted a more aggressive Indian policy, opening western areas to small farmers. They
also accelerated the shift from indentured white labor to African slaves.
IF VIRTUE BE a sin, if piety be guilt, all the principles of morality, goodness and justice be perverted,
we must confess that those who are now called rebels may be in danger of those high imputations.
Those loud and several bulls would affright innocents and render the defence of our brethren and the
inquiry into our sad and heavy oppressions, treason. But if there be, as sure there is, a just God to
appeal to; if religion and justice be a sanctuary here; if to plead the cause of the oppressed; if
sincerely to aim at his Majesty’s honour and the public good without any reservation or by interest; if
to stand in the gap after so much blood of our dear brethren bought and sold; if after the loss of a
great part of his Majesty’s colony deserted and dispeopled, freely with our lives and estates to
endeavour to save the remainders be treason; God Almighty judge and let guilty die. But since we
cannot in our hearts find one single spot of rebellion or treason, or that we have in any manner aimed
at subverting the settled government or attempting of the person of any either magistrate or private
man, notwithstanding the several reproaches and threats of some who for sinister ends were
disaffected to us and censured our innocent and honest designs, and since all people in all places
where we have yet been can attest our civil, quiet, peaceable behaviour far different from that of
rebellion and tumultuous persons, let truth be bold and all the world know the real foundations of
pretended guilt.
We appeal to the country itself what and of what nature their oppressions have been, or by what
cabal and mystery the designs of many of those whom we call great men have been transacted and
carried on; but let us trace these men in authority and favour to whose hands the dispensation of the
country’s wealth has been committed. Let us observe the sudden rise of their estates [compared] with
the quality in which they first entered this country, or the reputation they have held here amongst
wise and discerning men. And let us see whether their extractions and education have not been vile,
and by what pretence of learning and virtue they could so soon [come] into employments of so great
trust and consequence. Let us consider their sudden advancement and let us also consider whether
any public work for our safety and defence or for the advancement and propagation of trade, liberal
arts, or sciences is here extant in any way adequate to our vast charge. Now let us compare these
things together and see what sponges have sucked up the public treasure, and whether it has not been
privately contrived away by unworthy favourites and juggling parasites whose tottering fortunes
have been repaired and supported at the public charge. Now if it be so, judge what greater guilt can
be than to offer to pry into these and to unriddle the mysterious wiles of a powerful cabal; let all
people judge what can be of more dangerous import than to suspect the so long safe proceedings of
some of our grandees, and whether people may with safety open their eyes in so nice a concern.
Another main article of our guilt is our open and manifest aversion of all, not only the foreign but the
protected and darling Indians. This, we are informed, is rebellion of a deep dye for that both the
governor and council are . . . bound to defend the queen and the Appamatocks with their blood. Now,
whereas we do declare and can prove that they have been for these many years enemies to the king
and country, robbers and thieves and invaders of his Majesty’s right and our interest and estates, but
yet have by persons in authority been defended and protected even against his Majesty’s loyal
subjects, and that in so high a nature that even the complaints and oaths of his Majesty’s most loyal
subjects in a lawful manner proffered by them against those barbarous outlaws, have been by the
right honourable governor rejected and the delinquents from his presence dismissed, not only with
pardon and indemnity, but with all encouragement and favour; their firearms so destructful to us and
by our laws prohibited, commanded to be restored them, and open declaration before witness made
that they must have ammunition, although directly contrary to our law. Now what greater guilt can
be than to oppose and endeavour the destruction of these honest, quiet neighbours of ours?
Another main article of our guilt is our design not only to ruin and extirpate all Indians in general,
but all manner of trade and commerce with them. Judge who can be innocent that strike at this tender
eye of interest: since the right honourable the governor hath been pleased by his commission to
warrant this trade, who dare oppose it, or opposing it can be innocent? Although plantations be
deserted, the blood of our dear brethren spilled; on all sides our complaints; continually murder upon
murder renewed upon us; who may or dare think of the general subversion of all manner of trade and
commerce with our enemies who can or dare impeach any of . . . traders at the heads of the rivers, if
contrary to the wholesome provision made by laws for the country’s safety; they dare continue their
illegal practises and dare asperse the right honourable governor’s wisdom and justice so highly to
pretend to have his warrant to break that law which himself made; who dare say that these men at the
heads of the rivers buy and sell our blood, and do still, notwithstanding the late act made to the
contrary, admit Indians painted and continue to commerce; although these things can be proved, yet
who dare be so guilty as to do it? . . .
• • •
THE DECLARATION OF THE PEOPLE
For having upon specious pretences of public works, raised unjust taxes upon the commonalty for the
advancement of private favourites and other sinister ends, but no visible effects in any measure
adequate.
For not having during the long time of his government in any measure advanced this hopeful colony,
either by fortification, towns or trade.
For having abused and rendered contemptible the majesty of justice, of advancing to places of
judicature scandalous and ignorant favourites.
For having wronged his Majesty’s prerogative and interest by assuming the monopoly of the beaver
trade.
By having in that unjust gain bartered and sold his Majesty’s country and the lives of his loyal
subjects to the barbarous heathen.
For having protected, favoured and emboldened the Indians against his Majesty’s most loyal
subjects, never contriving, requiring, or appointing any due or proper means of satisfaction for their
many invasions, murders, and robberies committed upon us.
• • •
For having the second time attempted the same thereby calling down our forces from the defence of
the frontiers, and most weak exposed places, for the prevention of civil mischief and ruin amongst
ourselves, whilst the barbarous enemy in all places did invade, murder, and spoil us, his Majesty’s
most faithful subjects.
Of these, the aforesaid articles, we accuse Sir William Berkeley, as guilty of each and every one of
the same, and as one who has traitorously attempted, violated and injured his Majesty’s interest here,
by the loss of a great part of his colony, and many of his faithful and loyal subjects by him betrayed,
and in a barbarous and shameful manner exposed to the incursions and murders of the heathen.
And we do further demand, that the said Sir William Berkeley . . . be forthwith delivered up . . .
within four days after the notice hereof, or otherwise we declare as followeth: that in whatsoever
house, place, or ship [he] shall reside, be hid, or protected, we do declare that the owners, masters, or
inhabitants of the said places, to be confederates and traitors to the people, and the estates of them, as
also of all the aforesaid persons, to be confiscated. This we, the commons of Virginia, do declare
desiring a prime union amongst ourselves, that we may jointly, and with one accord defend ourselves
against the common enemy.
NATH BACON,
Gen’l.
By the Consent of the People.
Questions
1. What are the rebels’ main complaints against the government of Virginia?
2. Do Bacon and his followers envision any place for Indians in Virginia society?
16. Letter by an Immigrant to
Pennsylvania (1769)
Source: Johannes Hänner, “Letter by an Immigrant to Pennsylvania, 1769,” Unpublished
Documents on Emigration from the Archives of Switzerland, Albert B. Faust, DeutschAmerikanische Geschichtsblätter, vols. 18–19, pp. 37–39, trans. Volker Berghahn. Reprinted by
permission of Volker Berghahn.
Germans, 110,000 in all, formed the largest group of newcomers to the British colonies in the
eighteenth century. The desire for religious freedom inspired many migrants, but the primary
motivation for emigration was economic. German areas of Europe were plagued by persistent
agricultural crises. Families found it increasingly difficult to acquire land.
Most German newcomers settled in frontier areas—rural New York, western Pennsylvania, and the
southern backcountry—where they formed tightly knit farming communities in which German for
many years remained the dominant language. The letter below, by a German-speaking emigrant from
Switzerland to Pennsylvania, illustrates the response of many immigrants to life in America. “We
have a free country,” he wrote to his relatives at home, singling out ample employment opportunities,
low taxes, plentiful food, and abundant land as reasons for coming to America.
LEBANON, AUGUST 23, 1769
Dearest Father, Brother, and Sister and Brother-in-law, . . .
To begin with, we are all, thank God, fresh and healthy as long as the Lord wills, and if at last you
are also in good health, this would delight my heart. What I must tell you first of all is that I have
been dreaming one day after Johannis and that it seemed to me that my beloved brother-in-law in
Bubendorff had died. This would pain me a lot, and the Lord will protect him of this.
I have told you quite fully about the trip, and I will tell you what will not surprise you—that we have
a free country. Of the sundry craftsmen, one may do whatever one wants. Nor does the land require
payment of tithes [taxes requiring payment of a portion of a farmer’s produce to a local landlord,
typical in Europe]. . . . By the way, wheat is grown most frequently, rye, oats, . . . apples are
plentiful. . . . The land is very big from Canada to the east of us to Carolina in the south and to the
Spanish border in the west. . . . Except for Carolina [there are] many large and small rivers. One can
settle wherever one wants without asking anyone when he buys or leases something. . . .
I have always enough to do and we have no shortage of food. Bread is plentiful. If I work for two
days I earn more bread than in eight days [at home]. . . . Also I can buy many things so reasonably
[for example] a pair of shoes for [roughly] seven Pennsylvania shillings. . . . I think that with God’s
help I will obtain land. I am not pushing for it until I am in a better position. I would like for my
brother to come . . . and it will then be even nicer in the country. . . . I assume that the land has been
described to you sufficiently by various people and it is not surprising that the immigrant agents
[demand payment]. For the journey is long and it costs much to stay away for one year. . . . And at
this point I finally greet you all with all good friends and acquaintances very cordially, and I
command all of you to the care of the Lord so that you may be well in soul and body.
JOHANNES HÄNNER
Questions
1. What does Johannes Hänner seem to mean when he calls America a “free country”?
2. How does it appear that people in Europe learn about conditions in America?
17. An Act Concerning Negroes and Other
Slaves (1664)
Source: Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland (Baltimore, 1883), pp. 533–
34.
Both Virginia and Maryland in the 1660s enacted laws to clarify questions arising from the growing
importance of slavery and tightened the legal code relating to blacks. These laws drew a sharp
distinction between the status of white indentured servants and black slaves and sought to prevent
intimate relations between persons of different races. The measure below made all blacks in
Maryland, as well as those henceforth imported into the colony, slaves for life (some had previously
been treated as indentured servants, required to labor only for a fixed number of years before
becoming free), and decreed that a white woman who married a slave must serve her husband’s
owner until her partner’s death.
BE IT ENACTED by the Right Honorable the Lord Proprietary by the advice and consent of the upper
and lower house of this present General Assembly, that all Negroes or other slaves already within the
province, and all Negroes and other slaves to be hereafter imported into the province, shall serve
durante vita [for life]. And all children born of any Negro or other slave shall be slaves as their
fathers were, for the term of their lives.
And forasmuch as divers freeborn English women, forgetful of their free condition and to the
disgrace of our nation, marry Negro slaves, by which also divers suits may arise touching the issue
[children] of such women, and a great damage befalls the masters of such Negroes for prevention
whereof, for deterring such freeborn women from such shameful matches. Be it further enacted by
the authority, advice, and consent aforesaid, that whatsoever freeborn woman shall marry any slave
from and after the last day of this present Assembly shall serve the master of such slave during the
life of her husband. And that all the issue of such freeborn women so married shall be slaves as their
fathers were. And be it further enacted, that all the issues of English or other freeborn women that
have already married Negroes shall serve the masters of their parents till they be thirty years of age
and no longer.
Questions
1. What does the Maryland law tell us about how the consolidation of slavery affected ideas
about racial difference?
2. What does the document suggest about the limits of freedom in early colonial America?
18. Benjamin Franklin, “Observations
Concerning the Increase of Mankind”
(1751)
Source: [William Clarke], Observations on the Late and Present Conduct of the French, with
Regard to Their Encroachments upon the British Colonies in North America (Boston, 1755),
pp. 53–54.
Only a minority of immigrants from Europe to British North America in the eighteenth century came
from the British Isles. Some prominent colonists found the growing diversity of the population quite
disturbing. Benjamin Franklin was particularly troubled by the large influx of newcomers from
Germany into Pennsylvania in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1751 he wrote an essay, which he
circulated to friends in manuscript form, warning against the long-term effects of German
immigration on the English culture of the American colonies. He advocated increasing the number of
English immigrants and expanding the colonies’ control over land to the west to accommodate them
(a recipe for continuing conflict with Native Americans). The essay was published four years later as
an appendix to a pamphlet on a different subject. Reprinted numerous times, it was widely circulated
in the colonies and Great Britain, and was quoted by Adam Smith, David Hume, and other prominent
writers of the period on economics and politics.
A nation well regulated is like a polypus [octopus]; take away a limb, its place is soon supplied; cut it
in two, and each deficient part shall speedily grow out of the part remaining. Thus if you have room
and subsistence enough, as you may by dividing, make ten polypes out of one, you may of one make
ten nations, equally populous and powerful; or rather, increase a nation ten fold in numbers and
strength.
And since detachments of English from Britain sent to America, will have their places at home so
soon supplied and increase so largely here, why should the Palatine [German] boors be suffered to
swarm into our settlements, and by herding together establish their language and manners to the
exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens,
who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never
adopt our language or customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion.
Which leads me to add one remark: That the number of purely white people in the world is
proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of
the newcomers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are
generally of what we call a swarthy complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted,
who with the English, make the principal body of white people on the face of the earth. I could wish
their numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, scouring our planet, by clearing
America of woods, and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter light to the eyes of
inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we . . . darken its people? Why increase the sons of Africa,
by planting them in America, where we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and
Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the complexion of my
country, for such kind of partiality is natural to mankind.
Questions
1. What is Franklin’s objection to the growing German presence?
2. What does Franklin’s characterization of the complexions of various groups suggest about the
reliability of his perceptions of non-English peoples?
19. Complaint of an Indentured Servant
(1756)
Source: Elizabeth Sprigs to John Spyer, September 22, 1756, in Isabel M. Calder, Colonial
Captivities, Marches and Journeys (New York, 1935), pp. 151–52.
Throughout the colonial era, only a minority of emigrants from Europe to Britain’s North American
colonies were fully free. Settlers who could pay for their own passage and arrived ready to take
advantage of the opportunities offered by the New World—government officials, clergymen,
merchants, artisans, landowning farmers, and members of the lesser nobility—were considerably
outnumbered by indentured servants. These men and women voluntarily surrendered their freedom
for a specified time (usually five to seven years) in exchange for passage to America. Like slaves,
servants could be bought and sold, could not marry without the permission of their owner, were
subject to physical punishment, and saw their obligation to labor enforced by the courts. To ensure
uninterrupted work by female servants, the law lengthened the term of their indenture if they became
pregnant.
The letter below was written to her father in England by Elizabeth Sprigs, an indentured servant in
mid-eighteenth-century Maryland. It expressed complaints voiced by many servants from the
beginning of settlement. Sprigs, who had clearly had some kind of falling out with her father,
described constant labor, poor food and living conditions, and physical abuse. “Many Negroes are
better used,” she added.
MARYLAND, SEPTEMBER 22, 1756
Honored Father,
My being forever banished from your sight, will I hope pardon the boldness I now take of troubling
you with these. My long silence has been purely owing to my undutifulness to you, and well
knowing I had offended in the highest degree, put a tie to my tongue and pen, for fear I should be
extinct from your good graces and add a further trouble to you. But too well knowing your care and
tenderness for me so long as I retained my duty to you, induced me once again to endeavor, if
possible, to kindle up that flame again.
O Dear father, believe what I am going to relate the words of truth and sincerity, and balance my
former bad conduct [to] my sufferings here, and then I am sure you’ll pity your distressed daughter.
What we unfortunate English people suffer here is beyond the probability of you in England to
conceive. Let it suffice that I am one of the unhappy number, am toiling almost day and night, and
very often in the horse’s drudgery, with only this comfort that you bitch you do not half enough, and
then tied up and whipped to that degree that you’d not serve an animal. Scarce any thing but Indian
corn and salt to eat and that even begrudged nay many Negroes are better used, almost naked no
shoes nor stockings to wear, and the comfort after slaving during master’s pleasure, what rest we can
get is to wrap ourselves up in a blanket and lie upon the ground. This is the deplorable condition your
poor Betty endures, and now I beg if you have any bowels of compassion left show it by sending me
some relief. Clothing is the principal thing wanting, which if you should condescend to, may easily
send them to me by any of the ships bound to Baltimore town, Patapsco River, Maryland. And give
me leave to conclude in duty to you and uncles and aunts, and respect to all friends.
Honored Father
Your undutiful and disobedient child
Elizabeth Sprigs
Questions
1. What are Elizabeth Sprigs’s main complaints about her treatment?
2. Why does she compare her condition unfavorably to that of blacks?
20. Women in the Household Economy
(1709)
Source: John Lawson, A New Voyage to Carolina (London, 1709), pp. 84–85.
In the household economy of eighteenth-century America, the family was the center of economic
life. Most work revolved around the home, and all members—men, women, and children—
contributed to the family’s livelihood. John Lawson, an English naturalist, came to Carolina in 1700
and traveled over a thousand miles, studying the natural environment and trading with Indians. His A
New Voyage to Carolina offered a very favorable description of life in the colony. Lawson’s account
vividly described the lives of free Carolina women and the numerous kinds of labor they performed.
The work of farmers’ wives and daughters often spelled the difference between a family’s selfsufficiency and poverty. Lawson was captured and killed during an Indian uprising in 1711.
THE WOMEN ARE the most industrious sex in that place, and, by their good houswifery, make a great
deal of cloth of their own cotton, wool and flax; some of them keeping their families (though large)
very decently appareled, both with linens and woolens, so that they have no occasion to run into the
merchant’s debt, or lay their money out on stores for clothing. . . .
They marry very young; some at thirteen or fourteen; and she that stays till twenty, is reckoned a
stale maid; which is a very indifferent character in that warm country. The women are very fruitful;
most houses being full of little ones. It has been observed, that women long married, and without
children, in other places, have removed to Carolina, and become joyful mothers. They have very easy
travail in their child-bearing, in which they are so happy, as seldom to miscarry. . . .
Many of the women are very handy in canoes, and will manage them with great dexterity and skill,
which they become accustomed to in this watery country. They are ready to help their husbands in
any servile work, as planting, when the season of the weather requires expedition; pride seldom
banishing good houswifery. The girls are not bred up to the [spinning] wheel and sewing only; but
the dairy and affairs of the house they are very well acquainted withal; so that you shall see them,
whilst very young, manage their business with a great deal of conduct and alacrity. The children of
both sexes are very docile, and learn any thing with a great deal of Ease and Method; and those that
have the advantages of education, write good hands, and prove good accountants, which is most
coveted, and indeed most necessary in these parts.
Questions
1. What are the most important kinds of work done by Carolina women, according to Lawson?
2. How strict do gender roles appear to have been in early Carolina?
CHAPTER 4
Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle for
Empire, to 1763
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
21. An Act for the Encouragement of the Importation of White Servants (1698)
22. Olaudah Equiano on Slavery (1789)
23. Advertisements for Runaway Slaves and Servants (1738)
24. The Independent Reflector on Limited Monarchy and Liberty (1752)
25. The Trial of John Peter Zenger (1735)
26. The Great Awakening Comes to Connecticut (1740)
27. Pontiac, Two Speeches (1762 and 1763)
21. An Act for the Encouragement of the
Importation of White Servants (1698)
Source: Thomas Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina (Columbia, 1837), vol. 2,
pp. 153–56.
From the outset, South Carolina relied heavily on African slave labor. In 1698, the colonial
legislature sought to increase the white population by enacting a law paying the owners of ships that
brought young white men to the colony, and requiring slaveowners to accept them as indentured
servants. Two years later, the governor announced that the law had fulfilled its purpose and that there
were now around 4,000 whites and 4,000 blacks in the colony. The legislature then repealed the law.
But very quickly, as rice and indigo cultivation on slave plantations expanded, the population
imbalance reappeared. By the time of the American Revolution, slaves represented well over half of
South Carolina’s population. This law is an early example of the ideas, which recurred in later years,
both that a white majority is desirable and that some whites are more desirable than others.
WHEREAS, THE GREAT number of Negroes which of late have been imported into this colony may
endanger the safety thereof if speedy care be not taken and encouragement given for the importation
of white servants.
Be it enacted . . . that every merchant, owner or master of any ship or vessel, or any other person not
intending to settle and plant here, which shall bring any white male servants, Irish only excepted, into
Ashley river, above sixteen years of age and under forty, and the same shall deliver to the Receiver
General, shall receive and be paid by the said Receiver . . . the sum of thirteen pounds for every
servant so delivered . . . to the Receiver as aforesaid. Provided, that every servant . . . hath not less
than four years to serve from and after the day of his arrival in Ashley River, and every boy
aforesaid, not less than seven years. And if any person shall deliver to the Receiver aforesaid, any,
any servant or boy . . . which hath less time to serve than the respective times before appointed, the
Receiver shall pay such person proportionably to the rates and times aforesaid, for so long time as
such servant or boy hath to serve . . .
. . . Every owner of every plantation to which doth belong six men Negro slaves above sixteen years
old, shall take from the Receiver one servant, when it shall happen to be his lot to have one, and shall
within three months pay the said Receiver so much money for the said servant as the Receiver gave
to the person from whom he received the same; and the owner of every plantation to which doth
belong twelve Negro men, . . . shall when it shall be his lot, take two servants . . . and every master of
every plantation proportionably.
Questions
1. Why do the lawmakers believe this law is necessary?
2. Why do you think Irish servants are exempted from its provisions?
22. Olaudah Equiano on Slavery (1789)
Source: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavas Vassa, the
African, Written by Himself (London, 1789), vol. 1, pp. 46–49, 69–72, 83–88.
Of the estimated 7.7 million Africans transported to the New World between 1492 and 1820, over
half arrived between 1700 and 1800. Every European empire utilized slave labor and battled for
control of this profitable trade. A series of triangular trading routes crisscrossed the Atlantic, carrying
British goods to Africa and the colonies, colonial slave-grown products like tobacco, sugar, and rice
to Europe, and slaves from Africa to the New World.
The era’s most popular account of the slave experience was written by Olaudah Equiano, the son of a
West African village chief, kidnapped by slave traders in the 1750s. In the passages that follow,
Equiano describes his capture, encounter with other African peoples with whom he had no previous
contact, passage to the New World, and sale in the West Indies. Equiano went on to purchase his
freedom. His life underscored the greatest contradiction in the history of the eighteenth century—the
simultaneous expansion of freedom and slavery.
MY FATHER, BESIDES many slaves, had a numerous family, of which seven lived to grow up, including
myself and a sister, who was the only daughter. As I was the youngest of the sons, I became, of
course, the greatest favourite with my mother, and was always with her; and she used to take
particular pains to form my mind. I was trained up from my earliest years in the arts of agriculture
and war: my daily exercise was shooting and throwing javelins; and my mother adorned me with
emblems, after the manner of our greatest warriors. In this way I grew up till I was turned the age of
eleven, when an end was put to my happiness in the following manner:—Generally, when the grown
people in the neighbourhood were gone far in the fields to labour, the children assembled together in
some of the neighbours’ premises to play; and commonly some of us used to get up a tree to look out
for any assailant, or kidnapper, that might come upon us; for they sometimes took those opportunities
of our parents’ absence, to attack and carry off as many as they could seize. One day, as I was
watching at the top of a tree in our yard, I saw one of those people come into the yard of our next
neighbour but one, to kidnap, there being many stout young people in it. Immediately, on this, I gave
the alarm of the rogue, and he was surrounded by the stoutest of them, who entangled him with
cords, so that he could not escape till some of the grown people came and secured him. But, alas! ere
long it was my fate to be thus attacked, and to be carried off, when none of the grown people were
nigh. One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear
sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized
us both; and, without giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, tied our
hands, and ran off with us into the nearest wood: and continued to carry us as far as they could, till
night came on, when we reached a small house, where the robbers halted for refreshment, and spent
the night. We were then unbound, but were unable to take any food; and, being quite overpowered by
fatigue and grief, our only relief was some sleep, which allayed our misfortune for a short time. The
next morning we left the house, and continued travelling all the day. . . .
• • •
I continued to travel, sometimes by land, sometimes by water, through different countries, and
various nations, till, at the end of six or seven months after I had been kidnapped, I arrived at the sea
coast. It would be tedious and uninteresting to relate all the incidents which befel me during this
journey, and which I have not yet forgotten, of the various hands I passed through, and the manners
and customs of all the different people among whom I lived: I shall therefore only observe, that, in
all the places where I was, the soil was exceedingly rich; the pomkins, eadas, plantains, yams, &c.
&c. were in great abundance, and of incredible size. There were also vast quantities of different
gums, though not used for any purpose; and every where a great deal of tobacco. The cotton even
grew quite wild; and there was plenty of red wood. I saw no mechanics whatever in all the way,
except such as I have mentioned. The chief employment in all these countries was agriculture, and
both the males and females, as with us, were brought up to it, and trained in the arts of war.
The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave-ship,
which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which
was soon converted into terror, which I am yet at a loss to describe, nor the then feelings of my mind.
When I was carried on board I was immediately handled, and tossed up, to see if I were sound, by
some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they
were going to kill me. Their complexions too differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the
language they spoke, which was very different from any I had ever heard, united to confirm me in
this belief. Indeed, such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that, if ten thousand
worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition
with that of the meanest slave in my own country. When I looked round the ship too, and saw a large
furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together,
every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate,
and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. When I
recovered a little, I found some black people about me, who I believed were some of those who
brought me on board, and had been receiving their pay; they talked to me in order to cheer me, but
all in vain. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces,
and long hair? They told me I was not; and one of the crew brought me a small portion of spirituous
liquor in a wine glass; but, being afraid of him, I would not take it out of his hand. . . .
• • •
At last we came in sight of the island of Barbadoes, at which the whites on board gave a great shout,
and made many signs of joy to us. We did not know what to think of this; but as the vessel drew
nearer we plainly saw the harbour, and other ships of different kinds and sizes: and we soon
anchored amongst them off Bridge Town. Many merchants and planters now came on board, though
it was in the evening. They put us in separate parcels, and examined us attentively. They also made
us jump, and pointed to the land, signifying we were to go there. We thought by this we should be
eaten by these ugly men, as they appeared to us; and, when soon after we were all put down under
the deck again, there was much dread and trembling among us, and nothing but bitter cries to be
heard all the night from these apprehensions, insomuch that at last the white people got some old
slaves from the land to pacify us. They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work, and were soon to
go on land, where we should see many of our country people. This report eased us much; and sure
enough, soon after we were landed, there came to us Africans of all languages. We were conducted
immediately to the merchant’s yard, where we were all pent up together like so many sheep in a fold,
without regard to sex or age. As every object was new to me, every thing I saw filled me with
surprise. What struck me first was, that the houses were built with bricks, in stories, and in every
other respect different from those I have seen in Africa: but I was still more astonished on seeing
people on horseback. I did not know what this could mean; and indeed I thought these people were
full of nothing but magical arts. . . .
• • •
We were not many days in the merchant’s custody before we were sold after their usual manner,
which is this:—On a signal given, (as the beat of a drum), the buyers rush at once into the yard where
the slaves are confined, and make choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamour with
which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve not a little
to increase the apprehensions of the terrified Africans, who may well be supposed to consider them
as the ministers of that destruction to which they think themselves devoted. In this manner, without
scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again. I remember
in the vessel in which I was brought over, in the men’s apartment, there were several brothers, who,
in the sale, were sold in different lots; and it was very moving on this occasion to see and hear their
cries at parting. O, ye nominal Christians! might not an African ask you, learned you this from your
God? who says unto you, Do unto all men as you would men should do unto you? Is it not enough
that we are torn from our country and friends to toil for your luxury and lust of gain? Must every
tender feeling be likewise sacrificed to your avarice? Are the dearest friends and relations, now
rendered more dear by their separation from their kindred, still to be parted from each other, and thus
prevented from cheering the gloom of slavery with the small comfort of being together and mingling
their sufferings and sorrows? Why are parents to lose their children, brothers their sisters, or
husbands their wives? Surely this is a new refinement in cruelty, which, while it has no advantage to
atone for it, thus aggravates distress, and adds fresh horrors even to the wretchedness of slavery.
Questions
1. What picture of life in Africa does Equiano present?
2. What elements of slavery does he seem to think will most outrage his readers?
23. Advertisements for Runaway Slaves
and Servants (1738)
Source: Pennsylvania Gazette, July 1738.
As advertisements in colonial newspapers demonstrated, slaves and indentured servants frequently
expressed their desire for freedom by running away. Sometimes they escaped together, despite racial
differences between them and the fact that slaves served for life while servants would gain their
liberty after a number of years. Pennsylvania was a frequent refuge for fugitives from neighboring
Maryland, where slavery and servitude were more deeply entrenched.
RUN AWAY ON the 23d of March last, from the Subscribers, in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, the
following Servants, and a Negroe, viz.
George Humphrey, an Englishman, aged about 19 Years, fair complexion’d, talks slow, with light
brown Hair: Had on a light Cotton Jacket lined with yellow Linnen, a homespun Jacket and
Breeches, coarse Shirt and an old Felt Hat.
Barnaby Higgins, an Irishman, aged about 25 Years, Low of Stature, much pockfretten, by Trade a
Joyner or Carpenter: Had on a yellow Jacket and Breeches.
Michael Mara, an Irishman, aged about 25 Years, Low of Stature, swarthy Complexion, by Trade a
Turner: Had on a yellow Kersey Jacket and grey Breeches. Both the Irishmen had the two first
Letters of their Name marked on the Arm.
John Maine, an Englishman, bred to the Sea, middle aged, well set, much disfigured on the Face and
Throat from the King’s Evil.
John More, an Irishman, had a Blemish on one Eye, middle aged, high Stature, well set, a Labourer
and very dextrous at the Spade: Had on a Cinnamon colored Cloth Coat, a good Jacket and Breeches.
And a Negroe Man named Peter, about 25 Years old, Country born, of a middle Stature, well set,
talks notably: Had on a brownish Cloth Coat, a Country Cloth Jacket and Breeches, and a Felt Hat
pretty much worn.
They all made off in a Boat on Potomack River, 15 Feet in the Keel, with two Masts and rigged after
the Bermudian Manner.
Whoever secures the said Servants and Negroe, so that their Masters may have them again, shall
have Thirty Pounds Reward. Maryland Currency; and a proportionable Sum for any one or more of
them, and all necessary Charges paid by
Philad. July
John Heard,
Abraham Barns.
10. 1738
Thomas Brook,
Robert Ford.
Run away this Morning from Edward Farmer of Whitemarsh, a stout lusty Mollatto, known in
Philadelphia by the Name of Mollatto Memm alias James Earl, has a Scar on his Temple, a wide
Mouth and thick Lips, speaks good English. He was Cloathed when he went away, with a new Duroy
Jacket of a dirty colour, lined with a dark blue-grey clour’d Shalloon, trim’d with dark collour’d
Mohair and Buttons, a fine Shirt, a new fine Hat, a Silk Handkerchief, a speckled Pair of Trowsers,
worsted Stockings, and new Shoes and Buckles in them.
Whoever takes up and secures the said Mollatto, or brings him home to his Master, or puts him in the
Workhouse of Philadelphia, shall have Five Pounds Reward, paid by
Edward Farmer
Run away on Sunday last, from Henry Sparks, of Glocester Township, West-New-Jersey, an Irish
Servant Man, named James Mordox, about 60 Years of Age, of a dark Complexion, grey Hair but cut
off, by Trade a Smith. Had on a Suit of brown Cloaths, new Shoes and new Stockings.
Whoever secures the said Servant so that his Master may have him again shall have Forty Shillings
Reward, and reasonable Charges paid by Henry Sparks. Philad. July 6. 1738.
Run away on the 20th Inst, from Joseph James of Cohensey, a Servant Man named Lazarus Kenny,
is a swarthy Fellow, his Father being a Molatto and his Mother a white Woman, he is pretty tall and
well set, his Hair cut off: Had on a Felt Hat, grey Kersey Coat and Vest, old Leather Breeches, an old
homespun Shirt, yarn Stockings, round toe’d Shoes and brass Buckles. He took a large white Stallion
that trots altogether, with an old black Saddle and good Snaffel Bridle.
Whoever secures the said Servant and Horse so that they are had again, shall have Forty Shillings
Reward and reasonable Charges, paid by Joseph James.
Philad. June 29. 1738.
Questions
1. How do owners hope their fugitives will be identified?
2. What do these advertisements tell us about relations between slaves and servants?
24. The Independent Reflector on Limited
Monarchy and Liberty (1752)
Source: The Independent Reflector (New York), December 21, 1752.
During the eighteenth century, the idea of the “freeborn Englishman” became powerfully entrenched
in the outlook of both colonists and Britons. More than any other principle, liberty was seen as what
made the British empire distinct. The passage that follows, from the New York monthly magazine
The Independent Reflector, founded in 1752, offers an example of the era’s many paeans to the
“inexpressible charm” of liberty and England’s role as liberty’s “defender.” The author, probably the
magazine’s editor, Edward Livingston, contrasts the national prosperity and personal happiness
enjoyed by citizens of a “free state” (defined as a limited monarchy in which freedom of speech and
religion were protected) with the sorry condition of subjects of absolute monarchies. Until the 1770s,
most colonists believed themselves to be part of the freest political system humankind had ever
known.
WHEN ONE CONSIDERS the Difference between an absolute, and a limited Monarchy, it seems
unaccountable, that any Person in his Senses, should prefer the former to the later. . . .
In limited Monarchies, the Pride and Ambition of Princes, and their natural Lust for Dominion, are
check’d and restrained. . . .
Liberty gives an inexpressible Charm to all our Enjoyments. It imparts a Relish to the most
indifferent Pleasure, and renders the highest Gratification the more consummately delightful. It is the
Refinement of Life; it sooths and alleviates our Toils; smooths the rugged Brow of Adversity, and
endears and enhances every Acquisition. The Subjects of a free State, have something open and
generous in their Carriage; something of Grandeur and Sublimity in their Appearance, resulting from
their Freedom and Independence, that is never to be met with in those dreary Abodes, where the
embittering Circumstance of a precarious Property, mars the Relish of every Gratification, and
damps the most magnanimous Spirits. They can think for themselves; publish their Sentiments, and
animadvert on Religion and Government, secure and unmolested.
• • •
But in absolute Monarchies, the whole Country is overspread with a dismal Gloom. Slavery is
stamp’d on the Looks of the Inhabitants; and Penury engraved on their Visages, in strong and legible
Characters. To prevent Complaints, the Press is prohibited; and a Vindication of the natural Rights of
Mankind, is Treason. Every generous Spirit is broke and depressed: Human Nature is degraded,
insulted, spurn’d, and outrag’d: The lovely Image of GOD, is defaced and disfigur’d, and the Lord of
the Creation treated like the bestial Herd. The liberal Sciences languish: The politer Arts droop their
Heads: Merit is banished to Cells and Deserts; and Virtue frowned into Dungeons, or dispatched to
the Gallies: Iniquity is exalted: Goodness trod under Foot: Truth perverted; and the barbarous
Outrages of Tyranny, sanctified and adored. The Fields lie waste and uncultivated: Commerce is
incumbered with supernumerary Duties: The Tyrant riots in the Spoils of his People; and drains their
Purses, to replenish his insatiate Treasury. He wages War against his own Subjects. . . .
Does any one think the above Representation, the Result of a roving Fancy, or figur’d beyond the
Life; let him take a Survey of Rome; e’er-while the Nurse of Heroes, and the Terror of the World; but
now the obscene Haunt of sequestred Bigots, and effeminate Slaves. Where are now her Scipios, and
Tullys, her Brutuses, and her Catos, with other Names of equal Lustre, who plann’d her Laws, and
fought her Battles, during her Freedom and Independence? Alas! they are succeeded by cloistered
Monks and castrated Musicians, in Subjection to a filthy old Harlot, that pretends to a Power of
devouring her Mediator, and claims a Right to eat up her People. Let him survey all Italy, once the
Seat of Arts and Arms, and every Thing great and valuable; now the joyless Theatre of Oppression
and Tyranny, Superstition and Ignorance. Let him behold all this; and when he has finished his
Survey, then let him believe and tremble.
But far otherwise, is the Condition of a free People. Under the mild and gentle Administration of a
limited Prince, every Thing looks cheerful and happy, smiling and serene. Agriculture is encouraged,
and proves the annual Source of immense Riches to the Kingdom: The Earth opens her fertile Bosom
to the Plough-share, and luxuriant Harvests diffuse Wealth and Plenty thro’ the Land: The Fields
stand thick with Corn: The Pastures smile with Herbage: The Hills and Vallies are cover’d with
Flocks and Herds: Manufacturies flourish; and unprecarious Plenty recompenses the Artificer’s Toil:
In a Word, Nothing is seen but universal Joy and Festivity. Such is the Happiness of the People,
under the blissful Reign of a good King. But do they get a Prince, whose Heart is poison’d with
Regard to regal Authority, and who vainly imagines; that the Grandeur of Princes consists in making
themselves feared; and accordingly plays the Devil in the Name of the Lord: They boldly assert their
Rights, and call aloud for Justice; They cannot, they will not be enslaved. Sooner shall the royal
Sinner have the Honour of Martyrdom, and the Lord’s Anointed perish for his Iniquity, than the
whole Frame of the Government be unhinged and dissolved. . . .
• • •
How signal is our Happiness, in being blessed with a Prince, form’d for the Friend of the Nation, and
the Defender of the Liberties of Europe! A Prince, who despises the Thought of placing his Grandeur
in the Violation of the Laws; but is nobly ambitious of reigning in the Hearts of his People: A Prince,
who invariably exerts his native Greatness of Soul, and all his inherent and hereditary Virtues, in the
Support of Truth, Religion and Liberty: A Prince, in fine, unemulous of arbitrary Sway; but ardently
aspiring after those brighter Trophies, that are earn’d in the Paths of Virtue and heroic Deeds; in
relieving the Injured, protecting the Oppressed, and by a diffusive Benevolence, promoting the
Happiness of Mankind. Long, oh long may he still adorn the Throne of his Ancestors! and when the
Sovereign Disposer of Events, shall at last, to the keen and universal Affliction of his People,
translate him to the Possession of a Crown, eternal and incorruptible; we may presage, (which will be
the only Consideration capable of alleviating our Sorrow,) the greatest Glory, and the brightest
Triumphs, from his Royal Highness’s eminent Virtues; whose future Reign promises the most
distinguished Prosperity to the Nation; and will exhibit to Britain, a Monarch, from his benevolent
Disposition, and princely Education, the Father of his People, as well as a shining Ornament to that
illustrious Family, of which we have already seen two Heroes on the British Throne; the Scourges of
Tyrants, and the Assertors of Liberty.
Questions
1. What does the author mean by a “free state”?
2. Does the author think that the institution of monarchy is incompatible with freedom?
25. The Trial of John Peter Zenger (1735)
Source: The Trial of John Peter Zenger (London, 1765), pp. 19–46.
Under British and colonial law, the government could not censor newspapers, books, and pamphlets
before they appeared in print, but authors and publishers could be prosecuted for “seditious libel”—a
crime that included defaming government officials—or punished for contempt of public authority. In
colonial America, dozens of publishers were hauled before assemblies and forced to apologize for
comments regarding one or another member. If they refused, they were jailed.
The most famous colonial court case involving freedom of the press occurred in 1735. This was the
trial of John Peter Zenger, a German-born printer, whose newspaper, the Weekly Journal, lambasted
New York’s governor for corruption and “tyranny.” Zenger was arrested and put on trial for seditious
libel. The judge instructed the jurors to consider only whether Zenger had in fact published the
offending words. But Zenger’s attorney, Andrew Hamilton, told the jury that the “cause of liberty”
itself was at stake. If Zenger’s charges were correct, he went on, they should acquit him and “every
man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless you.” Zenger was found not guilty. The
outcome demonstrated that the idea of free expression was becoming ingrained in the popular
imagination.
MR. ATTORNEY. The case before the court is whether Mr. Zenger is guilty of libeling His
Excellency the Governor of New York, and indeed the whole administration of the government. Mr.
Hamilton has confessed the printing and publishing, and I think nothing is plainer than that the words
in the information [indictment] are scandalous, and tend to sedition, and to disquiet the minds of the
people of this province. And if such papers are not libels, I think it may be said there can be no such
thing as a libel.
MR. HAMILTON. May it please Your Honor, I cannot agree with Mr. Attorney. For though I freely
acknowledge that there are such things as libels, yet I must insist, at the same time, that what my
client is charged with is not a libel. And I observed just now that Mr. Attorney, in defining a libel,
made use of the words “scandalous, seditious, and tend to disquiet the people.” But (whether with
design or not I will not say) he omitted the word “false.”
MR. ATTORNEY. I think I did not omit the word “false.” But it has been said already that it may
be a libel, notwithstanding it may be true.
MR. HAMILTON. In this I must still differ with Mr. Attorney; for I depend upon it, we are to be
tried upon this information now before the court and jury, and to which we have pleaded not guilty,
and by it we are charged with printing and publishing a certain false, malicious, seditious, and
scandalous libel. This word “false” must have some meaning, or else how came it there? . . .
• • •
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE. You cannot be admitted, Mr. Hamilton, to give the truth of a libel in
evidence. A libel is not to be justified; for it is nevertheless a libel that it is true. . . .
MR. HAMILTON. I thank Your Honor. Then, gentlemen of the jury, it is to you we must now
appeal, for witnesses, to the truth of the facts we have offered, and are denied the liberty to prove.
And let it not seem strange that I apply myself to you in this manner. I am warranted so to do both by
law and reason.
The law supposes you to be summoned out of the neighborhood where the fact [crime] is alleged to
be committed; and the reason of your being taken out of the neighborhood is because you are
supposed to have the best knowledge of the fact that is to be tried. And were you to find a verdict
against my client, you must take upon you to say the papers referred to in the information, and which
we acknowledge we printed and published, are false, scandalous, and seditious. But of this I can have
no apprehension. You are citizens of New York; you are really what the law supposes you to be,
honest and lawful men. And, according to my brief, the facts which we offer to prove were not
committed in a corner; they are notoriously known to be true; and therefore in your justice lies our
safety. And as we are denied the liberty of giving evidence to prove the truth of what we have
published, I will beg leave to lay it down, as a standing rule in such cases, that the suppressing of
evidence ought always to be taken for the strongest evidence; and I hope it will have weight with
you. . . .
• • •
I hope to be pardoned, sir, for my zeal upon this occasion. It is an old and wise caution that when our
neighbor’s house is on fire, we ought to take care of our own. For though, blessed be God, I live in a
government [Pennsylvania] where liberty is well understood, and freely enjoyed, yet experience has
shown us all (I’m sure it has to me) that a bad precedent in one government is soon set up for an
authority in another. And therefore I cannot but think it mine, and every honest man’s duty; that
(while we pay all due obedience to men in authority) we ought at the same time to be upon our guard
against power, wherever we apprehend that it may affect ourselves or our fellow subjects.
I am truly very unequal to such an undertaking on many accounts. And you see I labor under the
weight of many years, and am borne down with great infirmities of body. Yet old and weak as I am, I
should think it my duty, if required, to go to the utmost part of the land, where my service could be
of any use, in assist—to quench the flame of prosecutions upon informations, set on foot by the
government, to deprive a people of the right of remonstrating (and complaining too) of the arbitrary
attempts of men in power. Men who injure and oppress the people under their administration
provoke them to cry out and complain; and then make that very complaint the foundation for new
oppressions and prosecutions. I wish I could say there were no instances of this kind.
But to conclude. The question before the court and you, gentlemen of the jury, is not of small nor
private concern. It is not the cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now
trying. No! It may, in its consequence, affect every freeman that lives under a British government on
the main [land] of America. It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty. And I make no doubt but
your upright conduct, this day, will not only entitle you to the love and esteem of your fellow
citizens; but every man who prefers freedom to a life of slavery will bless and honor you, as men
who have baffled the attempt of tyranny, and, by an impartial and uncorrupt verdict, have laid a
noble foundation for securing to ourselves, our posterity, and our neighbors, that to which nature and
the laws of our country have given us a right—the liberty both of exposing and opposing arbitrary
power (in these parts of the world, at least) by speaking and writing truth.
• • •
Questions
1. Why does Hamilton equate Zenger’s defense with “the cause of liberty”?
2. What does Hamilton seem to think is the greatest threat to liberty?
26. The Great Awakening Comes to
Connecticut (1740)
Source: George Leon Walker, Some Aspects of the Religious Life of New England (New York,
1897), pp. 89–92.
A series of religious revivals known as the Great Awakening swept through the colonies beginning in
the 1730s. The revivals were united by a commitment to a “religion of the heart,” a more emotional
and personal Christianity than that offered by existing churches. The Awakening was a transatlantic
movement. More than any other individual, the English minister George Whitefield, who declared
“the whole world his parish,” sparked the Great Awakening. For two years after his arrival in
America in 1739, Whitefield brought his highly emotional brand of preaching to colonies from
Georgia to New England.
A Connecticut farmer, Nathan Cole, in a 200-page autobiographical manuscript, offered a vivid
account of the impact of Whitefield’s preaching and how ordinary colonists responded to its spiritual
message. People, Cole wrote, traveled from far and wide to hear Whitefield because of “a concern
for their soul.” When he heard that Whitefield was nearby, Cole stopped his work, ran to get his
wife, and immediately took off on horseback. Cole would later go on to form his own church,
illustrating how the Great Awakening inspired ordinary people to think for themselves in religious
matters.
NOW IT PLEASED GOD to send Mr. Whitefield into this land; and my hearing of his preaching at
Philadelphia, like one of the Old apostles, and many thousands flocking to hear him preach the
Gospel, and great numbers were converted to Christ; I felt the Spirit of God drawing me by
conviction, longed to see and hear him, and wished he would come this way. And I soon heard he
was come to New York and the Jerseys and great multitudes flocking after him under great concern
for their Souls and many converted which brought on my concern more and more hoping soon to see
him but next I heard he was at Long Island, then at Boston, and next at Northampton.
Then one morning all on a Sudden, about 8 or 9 o’clock there came a messenger and said Mr.
Whitefield preached at Hartford and Weathersfield yesterday and is to preach at Middletown this
morning [October 23, 1740] at ten of the Clock. I was in my field at work. I dropped my tool that I
had in my hand and ran home and run through my house and bade my wife get ready quick to go and
hear Mr. Whitefield preach at Middletown, and run to my pasture for my horse with all my might
fearing that I should be too late to hear him. I brought my horse home and soon mounted and took
my wife up and went forward as fast as I thought the horse could bear, and when my horse began to
be out of breath, I would get down and put my wife on the saddle and bid her ride as fast as she could
and not stop or slack for me except I bade her, and so I would run until I was much out of breath, and
then mount my horse again, and so I did several times to favor my horse, we improved every
moment to get along as if we were fleeing for our lives, all the while fearing we should be too late to
hear the Sermon, for we had twelve miles to ride double in little more than an hour. . . .
And when we came within about half a mile of the road that comes down from Hartford,
Weathersfield, and Stepney to Middletown; on high land I saw before me a cloud or fog rising. I first
thought it came from the great river [Connecticut River], but as I came nearer the road, I heard a
noise something like a low rumbling thunder and presently found it was the noise of horses’ feet
coming down the road and this cloud was a cloud of dust made by the horses’ feet. . . . As I drew
nearer it seemed like a steady stream of horses and their riders, scarcely a horse more than his length
behind another, all of a lather and foam with sweat, their breath rolling out of their nostrils in the
cloud of dust every jump; every horse seemed to go with all his might to carry his rider to hear news
from heaven for the saving of Souls. It made me tremble to see the sight, how the world was in a
struggle, I found a [space] between two horses to slip in my horse; and my wife said . . . our clothes
will be all spoiled see how they look, for they were so covered with dust, that they looked almost all
of a color coats, hats, and shirts and horses.
We went down in the stream; I heard no man speak a word all the way three miles but every one
pressing forward in great haste and when we got to the old meeting house there was a great
multitude; it was said to be 3 or 4,000 of people assembled together, we got off from our horses and
shook off the dust, and the ministers were then coming to the meeting house. I turned and looked
towards the great river and saw the ferry boats running swift forward . . . bringing over loads of
people; the oars rowed nimble and quick, every thing men horses and boats seemed to be struggling
for life; the land and banks over the river looked black with people and horses all along the 12 miles.
I saw no man at work in his field, but all seemed to be gone.
When I saw Mr. Whitefield come upon the scaffold he looked almost angelical, a young, slim slender
youth before some thousands of people with a bold undaunted countenance, and my hearing how
God was with him everywhere as he came along it solemnized my mind, and put me into a trembling
fear before he began to preach; for he looked as if he was clothed with authority from the Great God,
and a sweet solemn solemnity sat upon his brow. And my hearing him preach gave me a heart
wound; by God’s blessing my old foundation was broken up, and I saw that my righteousness would
not save me; then I was convinced of the doctrine of Election and went right to quarreling with God
about it, because all that I could do would not save me; and he had decreed from Eternity who should
be saved and who not.
Questions
1. What religious doctrine does Whitefield preach?
2. How does Cole’s account help us to understand why many established religious leaders were
alarmed by Whitefield’s appearance in the American colonies?
27. Pontiac, Two Speeches (1762 and
1763)
Source: Alexander Henry, Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories
between the Years 1760 and 1776 [1809] (Toronto, 1901), p. 44; and Francis Parkman, The
Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian Wars after the Conquest of Canada, 6th ed. (Boston,
1874), vol. 1, pp. 204–7.
Victory in the Seven Years’ War, confirmed in the Treaty of Paris of 1763, established British
preeminence in North America east of the Mississippi River. To Indians, it was clear that the abrupt
departure of the French from Canada and the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, and the continued
expansion of the British settler population, posed a dire threat.
In 1763, Indians of the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes launched a revolt against British rule. Although
known as Pontiac’s Rebellion, after an Ottawa war leader, the rebellion owed much to the teachings
of Neolin, a Delaware religious prophet. Neolin and Pontiac promoted a pan-Indian identity among
members of different tribes, urging all Indians to fight to regain their lost independence. In 1763,
Indians seized several British forts and killed hundreds of white settlers who had intruded onto
Indian lands. British forces soon launched a counterattack, and one by one the tribes made peace. But
the uprising laid the groundwork for future resistance.
ENGLISHMAN, ALTHOUGH YOU have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us! We are not
your slaves. These lakes, these woods and mountains, were left to us by our ancestors. They are our
inheritance; and we will part with them to none. Your nation supposes that we, like the white people,
cannot live without bread—and pork—and beef! But, you ought to know, that He, the Great Spirit
and Master of Life, has provided food for us, in these spacious lakes, and on these woody
mountains. . . .
• • •
“A Delaware Indian [Neolin],” said Pontiac, “conceived an eager desire to learn wisdom from the
Master of Life; but, being ignorant where to find him, he had recourse to fasting, dreaming, and
magical incantations. By these means it was revealed to him, that, by moving forward in a straight,
undeviating course, he would reach the abode of the Great Spirit. He told his purpose to no one, and
having provided the equipments of a hunter,—gun, powder-horn, ammunition, and a kettle for
preparing his food,—he set out on his errand. For some time he journeyed on in high hope and
confidence. On the evening of the eighth day, he stopped by the side of a brook at the edge of a
meadow, where he began to make ready his evening meal, when, looking up, he saw three large
openings in the woods before him, and three well-beaten paths which entered them. He was much
surprised; but his wonder increased, when, after it had grown dark, the three paths were more clearly
visible than ever. Remembering the important object of his journey, he could neither rest nor sleep;
and, leaving his fire, he crossed the meadow, and entered the largest of the three openings. He had
advanced but a short distance into the forest, when a bright flame sprang out of the ground before
him, and arrested his steps. In great amazement, he turned back, and entered the second path, where
the same wonderful phenomenon again encountered him; and now, in terror and bewilderment, yet
still resolved to persevere, he took the last of the three paths. On this he journeyed a whole day
without interruption, when at length, emerging from the forest, he saw before him a vast mountain,
of dazzling whiteness. So precipitous was the ascent, that the Indian thought it hopeless to go farther,
and looked around him in despair: at that moment, he saw, seated at some distance above, the figure
of a beautiful woman arrayed in white, who arose as he looked upon her, and thus accosted him:
‘How can you hope, encumbered as you are, to succeed in your design? Go down to the foot of the
mountain, throw away your gun, your ammunition, your provisions, and your clothing; wash yourself
in the stream which flows there, and you will then be prepared to stand before the Master of Life.’
The Indian obeyed, and again began to ascend among the rocks, while the woman, seeing him still
discouraged, laughed at his faintness of heart, and told him that, if he wished for success, he must
climb by the aid of one hand and one foot only. After great toil and suffering, he at length found
himself at the summit. The woman had disappeared, and he was left alone. A rich and beautiful plain
lay before him, and at a little distance he saw three great villages, far superior to the squalid
wigwams of the Delawares. As he approached the largest, and stood hesitating whether he should
enter, a man gorgeously attired stepped forth, and, taking him by the hand, welcomed him to the
celestial abode. He then conducted him into the presence of the Great Spirit, where the Indian stood
confounded at the unspeakable splendor which surrounded him. The Great Spirit bade him be seated,
and thus addressed him:—
“ ‘I am the Maker of heaven and earth, the trees, lakes, rivers, and all things else. I am the Maker of
mankind; and because I love you, you must do my will. The land on which you live I have made for
you, and not for others. Why do you suffer the white men to dwell among you? My children, you
have forgotten the customs and traditions of your forefathers. Why do you not clothe yourselves in
skins, as they did, and use the bows and arrows, and the stonepointed lances, which they used? You
have bought guns, knives, kettles, and blankets, from the white men, until you can no longer do
without them; and, what is worse, you have drunk the poison fire-water, which turns you into fools.
Fling all these things away; live as your wise forefathers lived before you. And as for these English,
—these dogs dressed in red, who have come to rob you of your hunting-grounds, and drive away the
game,—you must lift the hatchet against them. Wipe them from the face of the earth, and then you
will win my favor back again, and once more be happy and prosperous.’”
Questions
1. How does Pontiac understand the meaning of freedom?
2. What elements of Indian life does Neolin criticize most strongly?
CHAPTER 5
The American Revolution, 1763–1783
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
28. Virginia Resolutions on the Stamp Act (1765)
29. New York Workingmen Demand a Voice in the Revolutionary Struggle (1770)
30. Association of the New York Sons of Liberty (1773)
31. Farmington, Connecticut, Resolutions on the Intolerable Acts (1774)
32. Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
33. Samuel Seabury’s Argument against Independence (1775)
28. Virginia Resolutions on the Stamp Act
(1765)
Source: John Pendleton Kennedy, ed., Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia 1761–1765
(Richmond, 1907), pp. lxvi–lxvii, 360.
The passage of the Stamp Act by Parliament in 1765 inspired the first major split between colonists
and Great Britain. Pressed for funds because of the enormous expense it had incurred in fighting the
Seven Years’ War, Parliament for the first time attempted to raise money from direct taxes in the
colonies rather than through the regulation of trade. The act required that all sorts of printed material
produced in the colonies carry a stamp purchased from authorities.
By imposing the stamp tax without colonial consent, Parliament directly challenged the authority of
local elites who, through the assemblies they controlled, had established their power over the raising
and spending of money. They were ready to defend this authority in the name of liberty. Virginia’s
House of Burgesses approved four resolutions offered by the fiery orator Patrick Henry. The
Burgesses rejected as too radical the last three resolutions that follow, including one calling for
outright resistance to unlawful taxation.
WHEREAS, THE HONOURABLE House of Commons in England, have of late draw[n] into question how
far the General Assembly of this colony hath power to enact laws for laying of taxes and imposing
duties payable by the people of this, his Majesty’s most ancient colony; for settling and ascertaining
the same to all future times, the House of Burgesses of this present General Assembly have come to
the following resolves.
Resolved, that the first adventurers, settlers of this his Majesty’s colony and dominion of Virginia,
brought with them and transmitted to their posterity, and all other his Majesty’s subjects since
inhabiting in this his Majesty’s colony, all the privileges and immunities that have at any time been
held, enjoyed, and possessed by the people of Great Britain.
Resolved, that by two royal charters granted by King James the first, the colonists aforesaid are
declared and entitled to all privileges and immunities of natural born subjects, to all intents and
purposes as if they had been abiding and born within the realm of England.
Resolved, that the taxation of the people by themselves, or by persons chosen by themselves to
represent them, who can only know what taxes the people are able to bear, or the easiest method of
raising them, and must themselves be affected by every tax laid on the people, is the only security
against a burdensome taxation, and the distinguishing characteristic of British freedom, without
which the ancient constitution cannot exist.
Resolved, that his Majesty’s liege people of this ancient colony have enjoyed the right of being thus
governed by their own Assembly in the article of taxes and internal police, and that the same have
never been forfeited, or any other way yielded up, but have been constantly recognized by the king
and people of Great Britain.
Resolved, therefore, that the General Assembly of this colony, together with his Majesty or his
substitutes, have in their representatives capacity, the only exclusive right and power to lay taxes and
imposts upon the inhabitants of this colony; and that every attempt to vest such power in any other
person or persons whatever than the General Assembly aforesaid, is illegal, unconstitutional, and
unjust, and has a manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American liberty.
Resolved, that his Majesty’s liege people, the inhabitants of this colony, are not bound to yield
obedience to any law or ordinance whatever, designed to impose any taxation whatsoever upon them,
other than the laws or ordinances of the General Assembly aforesaid.
Resolved, that any person who shall, by speaking or writing, assert or maintain that any person or
persons other than the General Assembly of this colony, have any right or power to impose or lay
any taxation on the people here, shall be deemed an enemy to his Majesty’s colony.
Questions
1. Why do you think the Virginia House of Burgesses adopted the first four resolutions but
rejected the final three?
2. What would be the difference between resting the resolutions’ arguments on “British freedom”
and appealing to a more universal concept of liberty?
29. New York Workingmen Demand a
Voice in the Revolutionary Struggle (1770)
Source: Brutus, To the Free and Loyal Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New-York . . . (New
York, 1774).
The struggle against British taxation measures of the 1760s greatly expanded the boundaries of
colonial politics. The following document illustrates how ordinary workingmen in New York City
claimed the right to challenge the city’s prominent merchants in determining how far resistance
should go. In the aftermath of the Townshend Acts, a series of taxes imposed by Parliament on the
American colonies, leaders in several colonies announced a boycott of British goods. They hoped to
pressure British merchants to persuade their government to repeal the measures. By 1770, however,
colonial merchants, as well as many Americans who did not want to do without British goods,
decided to resume trade. In response, a New Yorker calling himself Brutus published a call for a
continuation of the policy of nonimportation. He castigated the merchants as “mercantile Dons”
(“Don” being a Spanish word derived from “lord” and suggesting gentry status). Mechanics
(craftsmen), he insisted, had a right to a voice in public policy. The letter illustrates how the struggle
for colonial rights led to a democratization of politics.
FRIENDS, FELLOW CITIZENS, fellow Countrymen, and fellow Freeman,
Nothing can be more flagrantly wrong than the assertion of some of our mercantile Dons, that the
mechanics have no right to give their sentiments about the importation of British commodities. For
who, I would ask, is the member of community, that is absolutely independent of the rest? Or what
particular class among us, has an exclusive right to decide a question of general concern? When the
Non-Importation Agreement took place, what end was it designed to answer? Not surely the private
emolument of merchants, but the universal weal of the continent. It was to redeem from perdition,
from total perdition, that stock of English Liberty, to which every subject, whatever may be his rank,
is equally entitled. Amidst all the disparity of fortune and honors, there is one lot as common to all
Englishmen, as death. It is, that we are all equally free. Sufficient is it therefore, to show the
matchless absurdity of the exclusive claim, of which a few interested merchants have lately
attempted, in a most assuming manner, to avail themselves, in determining on the question, whether
the Non-Importation Agreement shall be rescinded, to observe, that it was not solemnly entered into
for the good of the merchants alone, but for the salvation of the Liberties of us all.
Of this the trading interest of this City were convinced, when, after forming themselves into a
Society for executing that Agreement, they not only requested a similar Association of the
Mechanics, but by frequent meetings, conspired with them in support of the important Company.
When the parties engaged in it, none doubted the necessity of so salutary a measure: every man saw,
that between an importation of goods, which stern virtue ought ever to despise as a means to
encourage luxury, and the sacrifice of our inestimable Rights as Englishmen, there was no medium.
This view of the subject begat and brought to perfection, the important resolution, which has inspired
the enemies of our Liberty on the other side of the Atlantic, with fear and astonishment. . . . Has not
our Mother Country, by solemn Act of Legislation, declared that she has a right to impose internal
Taxes on us? And is not such an imposition incompatible with our Liberty? But this law is a mere
dead letter, unless it be carried into exercise by some future Act. For this Purpose was the Law
devised, imposing a Duty upon Tea, Paper, Glass, Painters Colors, etc. the very articles which our
Egyptian task-masters thought were most essential to us, as being not hitherto the produce of this
country. And shall we not, for our own sakes, show that we can live without them? What are all the
riches, the luxuries, and even the conveniences of life, compared with that liberty wherewith God
and Nature have set us free, with that inestimable jewel which is the basis of all other enjoyments?
. . . Rouse then my fellow citizen, fellow countrymen, and fellow Freemen, of all ranks, from the
man of wealth, to the man whose only portion is Liberty.
Questions
1. What social divisions in the colonies are apparent in this broadside?
2. In what respect does the author believe that all colonists are equal?
30. Association of the New York Sons of
Liberty (1773)
Source: Hezekiah Niles, Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America (Baltimore, 1822), pp.
169–70.
The Sons of Liberty of New York City was one of many such groups that sprang up during the
Stamp Act crisis of 1765. It was led by talented and ambitious lesser merchants who enjoyed no
standing among the colony’s wealthy but commanded a broad following among the city’s craftsmen,
laborers, and sailors. The Sons took the lead in enforcing the boycott of British imports that led to
Parliament’s repeal of the act and a second boycott directed against the Townshend Duties of 1767.
In 1773, when Parliament passed the Tea Act, another taxation measure, the Sons again organized
resistance. On December 15, the Sons of Liberty announced an agreement or association to resist the
Tea Act. Signed by “a great number of the principal gentlemen of the city, merchants, lawyers, and
other inhabitants of all ranks,” the agreement forthrightly accused Britain of trampling on the
freedom of the colonists and threatening to reduce them to “slavery.”
THE FOLLOWING ASSOCIATION is signed by a great number of the principal gentlemen of the city,
merchants, lawyers, and other inhabitants of all ranks, and it is still carried about the city to give an
opportunity to those who have not yet signed, to unite with their fellow citizens, to testify their
abhorrence to the diabolical project of enslaving America.
THE ASSOCIATION OF THE SONS OF LIBERTY OF NEW
YORK
It is essential to the freedom and security of a free people, that no taxes be imposed upon them but by
their own consent, or their representatives. For “What property have they in that which another may,
by right, take when he pleases to himself?” The former is the undoubted right of Englishmen, to
secure which they expended millions and sacrificed the lives of thousands. And yet, to the
astonishment of all the world, and the grief of America, the Commons of Great Britain, after the
repeal of the memorable and detestable Stamp Act, reassumed the power of imposing taxes on the
American colonies; and insisting on it as a necessary badge of parliamentary supremacy, passed a
bill, in the seventh year of his present Majesty’s reign, imposing duties on all glass, painters’ colours,
paper, and teas, that should, after the 20th of November, 1767, be “imported from Great Britain into
any colony or plantation in America.” This bill, after the concurrence of the Lords, obtained the royal
assent. And thus they who, from time immemorial, have exercised the right of giving to, or
withholding from the crown, their aids and subsidies, according to their own free will and pleasure,
signified by their representatives in Parliament, do, by the Act in question, deny us, their brethren in
America, the enjoyment of the same right. As this denial, and the execution of that Act, involves our
slavery, and would sap the foundation of our freedom, whereby we should become slaves to our
brethren and fellow subjects, born to no greater stock of freedom than the Americans—the merchants
and inhabitants of this city, in conjunction with the merchants and inhabitants of the ancient
American colonies, entered into an agreement to decline a part of their commerce with Great Britain,
until the above mentioned Act should be totally repealed.
This agreement operated so powerfully to the disadvantage of the manufacturers of England that
many of them were unemployed. To appease their clamours, and to provide the subsistence for them,
which the non-importation had deprived them of, the Parliament, in 1770, repealed so much of the
Revenue Act as imposed a duty on glass, painters’ colours, and paper, and left the duty on tea, as a
test of the parliamentary right to tax us. The merchants of the cities of New York and Philadelphia,
having strictly adhered to the agreement, so far as it is related to the importation of articles subject to
an American duty, have convinced the ministry, that some other measures must be adopted to
execute parliamentary supremacy over this country, and to remove the distress brought on the East
India Company, by the ill policy of that Act. Accordingly, to increase the temptation to the shippers
of tea from England, an Act of Parliament passed the last session, which gives the whole duty on tea,
the company were subject to pay, upon the importation of it into England, to the purchasers and
exporters; and when the company have ten millions of pounds of tea in their warehouses exclusive of
the quantity they may want to ship, they are allowed to export tea, discharged from the payment of
that duty with which they were before chargeable.
In hopes of aid in the execution of this project, by the influence of the owners of the American ships,
application was made by the company to the captains of those ships to take the tea on freight; but
they virtuously rejected it. Still determined on the scheme, they have chartered ships to bring the tea
to this country, which may be hourly expected, to make an important trial of our virtue. If they
succeed in the sale of that tea, we shall have no property that we can call our own, and then we may
bid adieu to American liberty. Therefore, to prevent a calamity which, of all others, is the most to be
dreaded—slavery and its terrible concomitants—we, the subscribers, being influenced from a regard
to liberty, and disposed to use all lawful endeavours in our power, to defeat the pernicious project,
and to transmit to our posterity those blessings of freedom which our ancestors have handed down to
us; and to contribute to the support of the common liberties of America, which are in danger to be
subverted, do, for those important purposes, agree to associate together, under the name and style of
the sons of New York, and engage our honour to, and with each other faithfully to observe and
perform the following resolutions, viz.
1. 1st. Resolved, that whoever shall aid or abet, or in any manner assist, in the introduction of tea
from any place whatsoever, into this colony, while it is subject, by a British Act of Parliament,
to the payment of a duty, for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, he shall be deemed
an enemy to the liberties of America.
2. 2d. Resolved, that whoever shall be aiding, or assisting, in the landing, or carting of such tea,
from any ship, or vessel, or shall hire any house, storehouse, or cellar or any place whatsoever,
to deposit the tea, subject to a duty as aforesaid, he shall be deemed an enemy to the liberties
of America.
3. 3d. Resolved, that whoever shall sell, or buy, or in any manner contribute to the sale, or
purchase of tea, subject to a duty as aforesaid, or shall aid, or abet, in transporting such tea, by
land or water, from this city, until the 7th George III, chap. 46, commonly called the Revenue
Act, shall be totally and clearly repealed, he shall be deemed an enemy to the liberties of
America.
4. 4th. Resolved, that whether the duties on tea, imposed by this Act, be paid in Great Britain or
in America, our liberties are equally affected.
5. 5th. Resolved, that whoever shall transgress any of these resolutions, we will not deal with, or
employ, or have any connection with him.
Questions
1. How do the Sons of Liberty explain Britain’s motivations for passing the Tea Act?
2. What do they consider the relationship between property and liberty?
31. Farmington, Connecticut, Resolutions
on the Intolerable Acts (1774)
Source: Peter Force, American Archives (Washington, D.C., 1837–53), ser. 4, vol. 1, p. 336.
Parliament responded to the Boston Tea Party by passing a series of coercive laws. These closed the
port of Boston to all trade until the tea had been paid for, radically altered the Massachusetts Charter
of 1691 by curtailing town meetings and authorizing the governor to appoint previously elected
members of the council, and empowered military commanders to lodge soldiers in private homes.
These measures, which Americans called the Intolerable Acts, destroyed the legitimacy of the
imperial government in the eyes of many colonists. Opposition now spread to small towns and rural
areas that had not participated actively in previous resistance. A gathering of 1,000 residents of
Farmington, Connecticut, in May 1774 erected a liberty pole and adopted resolutions proclaiming
that they were “the sons of freedom” who “scorn the chains of slavery” Britain had fashioned for
America. The Farmington resolutions accused the British ministry of being “instigated by the devil.”
Especially in New England, the cause of liberty had become the cause of God.
PROCEEDINGS OF FARMINGTON, Connecticut, on the Boston Port Act, May 19, 1774.
Early in the morning was found the following handbill, posted up in various parts of the town, viz:
To pass through the fire at six o’clock this evening, in honour to the immortal goddess of
Liberty, the late infamous Act of the British Parliament for farther distressing the American
Colonies; the place of execution will be the public parade, where all Sons of Liberty are desired
to attend.
Accordingly, a very numerous and respectable body were assembled of near one thousand people,
when a huge pole, just forty-five feet high, was erected and consecrated to the shrine of liberty; after
which the Act of Parliament for blocking up the Boston harbour was read aloud, sentenced to the
flames and executed by the hands of the common hangman; then the following resolves were passed,
nem.con.:
1. 1st. That it is the greatest dignity, interest and happiness of every American to be united with
our parent State, while our liberties are duly secured, maintained and supported by our rightful
Sovereign, whose person we greatly revere; whose government, while duly administered, we
are ready with our lives and properties to support.
2. 2d. That the present ministry, being instigated by the devil and led on by their wicked and
corrupt hearts, have a design to take away our liberties and properties and to enslave us
forever.
3. 3d. That the late Act which their malice hath caused to be passed in Parliament, for blocking
up the port of Boston, is unjust, illegal and oppressive; and that we and every American are
sharers in the insults offered to the town of Boston.
4. 4th. That those pimps and parasites who dared to advise their master to such detestable
measures be held in utter abhorrence by us and every American, and their names loaded with
the curses of all succeeding generations.
5. 5th. That we scorn the chains of slavery; we despise every attempt to rivet them upon us; we
are the sons of freedom and resolved that, till time shall be no more, godlike virtue shall blazon
our hemisphere.
Questions
1. How does the language of the resolutions suggest that feelings toward Great Britain have
hardened in the colonies?
2. How do the resolutions qualify or limit Americans’ sense of loyalty to the British government?
32. Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)
Source: Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1776), pp. 1, 6–12, 15–30.
Ironically, a recent emigrant from England offered the most persuasive argument for American
independence. Thomas Paine arrived in Philadelphia late in 1774 and quickly became associated
with a group of advocates of the American cause. His pamphlet, Common Sense, appeared in January
1776. It began not with a recital of colonial grievances but with an attack on the principles of
hereditary rule and monarchial government. Paine then drew on the colonists’ experiences to make
his case for independence. Within the British empire, America’s prospects were limited; trading
freely with the entire world, its future prosperity was certain. With independence, moreover, the
colonies could for the first time insulate themselves from involvement in the endless imperial wars of
Europe. But more than such practical considerations, Paine outlined a stirring vision of the historical
importance of the American Revolution. The new nation would become the home of freedom, “an
asylum for mankind.”
Previous political writings had generally been directed toward the educated elite. Paine pioneered a
new style of political writing, one designed to expand dramatically the public sphere where political
discussion took place. Common Sense quickly became one of the most successful and influential
pamphlets in the history of political writing.
INTRODUCTION
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to
procure them general Favor; a long Habit of not thinking a Thing wrong, gives it a superficial
appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of Custom. But the
Tumult soon subsides. Time makes more Converts than Reason.
As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question, (and
in matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the sufferers been aggravated into
the inquiry,) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his own right, to support the Parliament
in what he calls Theirs, and as the good People of this Country are grievously oppressed by the
Combination, they have an undoubted privilege to enquire into the Pretensions of both, and equally
to reject the Usurpation of either.
In the following Sheets, the Author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among
ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise and the
worthy need not the triumph of a Pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious or unfriendly
will cease of themselves, unless too much pain is bestowed upon their conversions.
The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and
will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of
mankind are affected, and in the event of which their affections are interested. The laying a country
desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating
the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath
given the power of feeling.
• • •
OF MONARCHY AND HEREDITARY SUCCESSION
Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could only be destroyed by
some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich, and poor, may in a great measure be
accounted for, and that without having recourse to the harsh ill sounding names of oppression and
avarice. Oppression is often the consequence, but seldom or never the means of riches; and though
avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be
wealthy.
But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be
assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the
distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the
world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into,
and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.
• • •
All men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in
perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of
honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of
the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it,
otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.
As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William the Conqueror was an
usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will
not bear looking into.
• • •
THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AMERICAN
AFFAIRS
In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense:
and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice
and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves: that he will put
on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views
beyond the present day.
Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and America. Men of all
ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different motives, and with various designs; but all
have been ineffectual, and the period of debate is closed. Arms as the last resource decide the
contest; the appeal was the choice of the King, and the Continent has accepted the challenge.
• • •
The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ’Tis not the affair of a City, a County, a Province,
or a Kingdom; but of a Continent—of at least one eighth part of the habitable Globe. ’Tis not the
concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or
less affected even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed-time of Continental
union, faith and honour. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin
on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full
grown character.
• • •
As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an agreeable dream, hath
passed away and left us as we were, it is but right that we should examine the contrary side of the
argument, and enquire into some of the many material injuries which these Colonies sustain, and
always will sustain, by being connected with and dependent on Great-Britain. To examine that
connection and dependence, on the principles of nature and common sense, to see what we have to
trust to, if separated, and what we are to expect, if dependant.
I have heard it asserted by some, that as America has flourished under her former connection with
Great-Britain, the same connection is necessary towards her future happiness, and will always have
the same effect. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert
that because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat, or that the first twenty years
of our lives is to become a precedent for the next twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true;
for I answer roundly, that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no
European power taken any notice of her. The commerce by which she hath enriched herself are the
necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe.
But she has protected us, say some. That she hath engrossed us is true, and defended the Continent at
our expense as well as her own, is admitted; and she would have defended Turkey from the same
motive, viz. for the sake of trade and dominion.
Alas! we have been long led away by ancient prejudices and made large sacrifices to superstition.
We have boasted the protection of Great Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest
not attachment; and that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account; but from her
enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who
will always be our enemies on the same account. Let Britain waive her pretensions to the Continent,
or the Continent throw off the dependence, and we should be at peace with France and Spain, were
they at war with Britain.
• • •
But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct. Even brutes do
not devour their young, nor savages make war upon their families; Wherefore, the assertion, if true,
turns to her reproach; but it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase parent or mother
country hath been jesuitically adopted by the King and his parasites, with a low papistical design of
gaining an unfair bias on the credulous weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the
parent country of America. This new World hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil
and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces
of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same
tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.
• • •
Our plan is commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship of all
Europe; because it is the interest of all Europe to have America a free port. Her trade will always be a
protection, and her barrenness of gold and silver secure her from invaders.
I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show a single advantage that this continent can
reap by being connected with Great Britain. I repeat the challenge; not a single advantage is derived.
Our corn will fetch its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for by
them where we will.
But the injuries and disadvantages which we sustain by that connection, are without number; and our
duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us to renounce the alliance: because, any
submission to, or dependence on, Great Britain, tends directly to involve this Continent in European
wars and quarrels, and set us at variance with nations who would otherwise seek our friendship, and
against whom we have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe is our market for trade, we ought to
form no partial connection with any part of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of
European contentions, which she never can do, while, by her dependence on Britain, she is made the
makeweight in the scale of British politics.
• • •
’Tis repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples from former ages, to
suppose that this Continent can long remain subject to any external power. The most sanguine in
Britain doth not think so. The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time, compass a plan,
short of separation, which can promise the continent even a year’s security. Reconciliation is now a
fallacious dream. Nature hath deserted the connection, and art cannot supply her place. For, as
Milton wisely expresses, “never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have
pierced so deep.”
A government of our own is our natural right: and when a man seriously reflects on the
precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced, that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to
form a constitution of our own in a cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to
trust such an interesting event to time and chance.
• • •
O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every
spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the Globe. Asia
and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her
warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
Questions
1. Why does Paine begin his argument for independence with an attack on the principle of
monarchy and hereditary succession?
2. What passages illustrate Paine’s effort to write in language ordinary readers can understand?
33. Samuel Seabury’s Argument against
Independence (1775)
Source: Samuel Seabury, An Alarm to the Legislature of the Province of New York (New York,
1775), pp. 2–5.
A native of Connecticut, graduate of Yale College, and Anglican minister, Samuel Seabury was a
devoted Loyalist who in 1774 and 1775 published several pamphlets opposing the revolutionary
movement. After being briefly jailed for his views, he took refuge in New York City when it was
under British occupation during the War of Independence. Unlike many Loyalists, Seabury remained
in the United States after the war and became the new nation’s first Episcopal bishop.
WHEN YOU REFLECT upon the present confused and distressed state of this, and the other colonies, I
am persuaded, that you will think no apology necessary for the liberty I have taken, of addressing
you on that subject. The unhappy contention we have entered into with our parent state, would
inevitably be attended with many disagreeable circumstances, with many and great inconveniences to
us, even were it conducted on our part, with propriety and moderation. What then must be the case,
when all proper and moderate measures are rejected? When not even the appearance of decency is
regarded? When nothing seems to be consulted, but how to perplex, irritate, and affront, the British
Ministry, Parliament, Nation and King? When every scheme that tends to peace, is branded with
ignominy; as being the machination of slavery! When nothing is called FREEDOM but SEDITION!
Nothing LIBERTY but REBELLION!
I will not presume to encroach so far upon your time, as to attempt to point out the causes of our
unnatural contention with Great Britain. You are well acquainted with them.—Nor will I attempt to
trace out the progress of that infatuation, which hath so deeply, so miserably, infected the Colonies.
You must have observed its rise, and noted its rapid growth. But I intreat your patience and candour,
while I make some observations on the conduct of the Colonies in general, and of this Colony in
particular, in the present dispute with our mother country: By which it will appear, that most, if not
all the measures that have been adopted, have been illegal in their beginning, tyrannical in their
operation,—and that they must be ineffectual in the event.
It is the happiness of the British Government, and of all the British Colonies, that the people have a
right to share in the legislature. This right they exercise by choosing representatives; and thereby
constituting one branch of the legislative authority. But when they have chosen their representatives,
that right, which was before diffused through the whole people, centers in their Representatives
alone; and can legally be exercised by none but them. They become the guardians of the lives, the
liberties, the rights and properties, of the people: And as they are under the most sacred obligations to
discharge their trust with prudence and fidelity, so the people are under the strongest obligations to
treat them with honour and respect; and to look to them for redress of all those grievances that they
can justly complain of.
But in the present dispute with Great Britain, the representatives of the people have not only been
utterly disregarded, but their dignity has been trampled upon, and their authority contravened. A
Committee, chosen in a tumultuous, illegal manner, usurped the most despotic authority over the
province. They entered into contracts, compacts, combinations, treaties of alliance, with the other
colonies, without any power from the legislature of the province. They agreed with the other
Colonies to send Delegates to meet in convention at Philadelphia, to determine upon the rights and
liberties of the good people of this province, unsupported by any Law. . . .
The state to which the Grand Congress, and the subordinate Committees, have reduced the colonies,
is really deplorable. They have introduced a system of the most oppressive tyranny that can possibly
be imagined;—a tyranny, not only over the actions, but over the words, thoughts, and minds, of the
good people of this province. People have been threatened with the vengeance of a mob, for speaking
in support of order and good government. Every method has been used to intimidate the printers
from publishing any thing, which tended to peace, or seemed in favour of government; while the
most detestable libels against the King, the British parliament, and Ministry, have been eagerly read,
and extravagantly commended, as the matchless productions of some heaven-born genius, glowing
with the pure flame of civil liberty. . . .
Behold, Gentlemen, behold the wretched state to which we are reduced! A foreign power is brought
in to govern this province. Laws made at Philadelphia, by factious men from New-England, NewJersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, are imposed upon us by the most
imperious menaces. Money is levied upon us without the consent of our representatives: which very
money, under color of relieving the poor people of Boston, it is too probable will be employed to
raise an army against the King. Mobs and riots are encouraged, in order to force submission to the
tyranny of the Congress.
Questions
1. Why does Seabury believe the Continental Congress and local committees are undermining
Americans’ liberties?
2. How does Seabury differ from advocates of independence in his understanding of freedom?
CHAPTER 6
The Revolution Within
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
34. Abigail and John Adams on Women and the American Revolution (1776)
35. Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1779)
36. John Adams on the American Revolution (1818)
37. Noah Webster on Equality (1787)
38. Liberating Indentured Servants (1784)
39. Letter of Phillis Wheatley (1774)
40. Benjamin Rush, Thoughts upon Female Education (1787)
34. Abigail and John Adams on Women
and the American Revolution (1776)
Source: Charles F. Adams, ed., Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams
during the Revolution (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1876), pp. 148–50, 155.
Abigail Adams was one of the revolutionary era’s most important women. During the War of
Independence, she peppered her husband, John Adams, with questions about the progress of the
struggle, kept him informed of events in Massachusetts, and offered opinions on political matters.
When Adams served as president during the 1790s he relied on her advice more than on members of
his cabinet. In March 1776, Abigail Adams wrote her best-known letter to her husband. She urged
Congress, when it drew up a new “Code of Laws,” to “remember the ladies.” All men, she warned,
“would be tyrants if they could.”
At a time when many Americans—slaves, servants, women, Indians, apprentices, propertyless men
—were denied full freedom, the struggle against Britain inspired challenges to all sorts of
inequalities. As John Adams’s reply demonstrates, not all American leaders welcomed this upheaval.
To him, it was an affront to the natural order of things. To others, it formed the essence of the
American Revolution.
Abigail Adams to John Adams
BRAINTREE [MASS.], MARCH 31, 1776
I wish you would ever write me a letter half as long as I write you, and tell me if you may where
your fleet are gone? What sort of defense Virginia can make against our common enemy? Whether it
is so situated as to make an able defense? Are not the gentry lords and the common people vassals,
are they not like the uncivilized natives Britain represents us to be? I hope their riflemen who have
shown themselves very savage and even blood-thirsty, are not a specimen of the generality of the
people. . . .
I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for Liberty cannot be equally strong in the
breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs. Of this I am
certain, that it is not founded upon that generous and Christian principle of doing to others as we
would that others should do unto us. . . .
I feel very differently at the approach of spring to what I did a month ago. We knew not then whether
we could plant or sow with safety, whether when we had toiled we could reap the fruits of our own
industry, whether we could rest in our own cottages, or whether we should not be driven from the sea
coasts to seek shelter in the wilderness. But now we feel as if we might sit under our own vine and
eat the good of the land. . . . I think the sun looks brighter, the birds sing more melodiously, and
nature puts on a more cheerful countenance. We feel a temporary peace, and the poor fugitives are
returning to their deserted habitations.
Though we felicitate ourselves, we sympathize with those who are trembling lest the lot of Boston
should be theirs. But they cannot be in similar circumstances unless . . . cowardice should take
possession of them. They have time and warning given them to see the evil and shun it.
I long to hear that you have declared an independency, and by the way in the new Code of Laws
which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and
be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into
the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and
attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold
ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.
That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute,
but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender
and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to
use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity? Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which
treat us only as the vassals of your sex. Regard us then as beings placed by providence under your
protection and in imitation of the Supreme Being make use of that power only for our happiness.
John Adams to Abigail Adams
PHILADELPHIA, APRIL 14, 1776
As to Declarations of Independency, be patient. . . . As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot
but laugh. We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bands of government everywhere.
That children and apprentices were disobedient, that schools and colleges were grown turbulent, that
Indians slighted their guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the
first intimation that another tribe more numerous and powerful than all the rest were grown
discontented. This is rather too coarse a compliment but you are so saucy, I won’t blot it out.
Depend on it. We know better than to repeal our masculine systems. Although they are in full force,
you know they are little more than theory. We dare not exert our power in its full latitude. We are
obligated to go fair, and softly, and in practice you knew we are the subjects. We have only the
names of Masters, and rather than give this up, which would completely subject us to the despotism
of the petticoat, I hope General Washington, and all our brave heroes, would fight. I am sure every
good politician would plot, as long as he would against despotism, empire, monarchy, aristocracy,
oligarchy, or ochlocracy [mob rule]. A fine story indeed.
Questions:
1. What do you think Abigail Adams has in mind when she writes of the “unlimited power”
husbands exercise over their wives?
2. Why did the struggle for independence “loosen the bands of government everywhere,” as John
Adams remarks?
35. Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing
Religious Freedom (1779)
Source: Paul L. Ford, ed., The Works of Thomas Jefferson (12 vols.: New York, 1904–5), vol. 2,
pp. 438–41.
A strong advocate of the separation of church and state, Thomas Jefferson drafted a bill to that end in
1779. In Virginia before independence, all persons, regardless of religious persuasion, were taxed to
support the Anglican church. The struggle for independence led Baptists, Methodists, and members
of nonestablished churches to demand that each religion support itself, without governmental
assistance. Jefferson’s bill was opposed by a group including Patrick Henry, who favored offering
governmental support to a variety of churches. It took until 1786 for Jefferson’s measure to become
law; at the time he was in Paris, serving as American ambassador to France, and James Madison
shepherded it through the legislature.
SECTION I. Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow
involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free,
and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of
restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil
incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the
plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet choose not to
propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to exalt it by its
influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislature and ruler, civil as well as
ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over
the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and
infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false
religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish
contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and
tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is
depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose
morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness; and
is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of
their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the
instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more
than our opinions in physics or geometry; and therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the
public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust or emolument,
unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injudiciously of those
privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow-citizens, he has a natural right; that it
tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a
monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it;
that though indeed these are criminals who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those
innocent who lay the bait in their way; that the opinions of men are not the object of civil
government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the
field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill
tendency is a dangerous falacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of
course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn
the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or suffer from his own; that it is time enough
for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out
into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to
herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the
conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate;
errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.
SECT. II. We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent
or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained,
molested, or burthened in his body or goods, or shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious
opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their
opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their
civil capacities.
SECT. III. And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for their ordinary
purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted
with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no
effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the
natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to
narrow its operations, such act will be an infringement of natural right.
Questions
1. Why does Jefferson declare that religious freedom is a “natural right”?
2. Does Jefferson seek to weaken or strengthen religion by prohibiting governmental enforcement
of religious belief?
36. John Adams on the American
Revolution (1818)
Source: The Works of John Adams (Boston, 1856), vol. 10, pp. 282–89.
In this letter to Hezekiah Niles of Baltimore, the editor of the newspaper Niles’ Weekly Register,
John Adams outlined his view of the causes of the American Revolution. The real revolution, he
insisted, had been a change in the mindset and allegiances of the people, which took place before the
War of Independence. Adams believed it essential that young people born after the Revolution study
its history, so as to develop a sense of national identity.
QUINCY, FEBRUARY 13, 1818
Mr. Niles,
The American Revolution was not a trifling nor a common event. Its effects and consequences have
already been awful [inspiring awe] over a great part of the globe. And when and where are they to
cease?
But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American War? The
Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of
the People. A change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations. While the King,
and all in authority under him, were believed to govern, in justice and mercy according to the laws
and constitutions derived to them from the God of Nature, and transmitted to them by their ancestors
—they thought themselves bound to pray for the King and Queen and all the royal family, and all the
authority under them, as ministers ordained of God for their good. But when they saw those powers
renouncing all the principles of authority, and bent upon the destruction of all the securities of their
lives, liberties and properties, they thought it their duty to pray for the Continental Congress and all
the thirteen State Congresses, etc.
There might be, and there were others, who thought less about religion and conscience, but had
certain habitual sentiments of allegiance and loyalty derived from their education; but believing
allegiance and protection to be reciprocal, when protection was withdrawn, they thought allegiance
was dissolved.
Another alteration was common to all. The people of America had been educated in an habitual
affection for England as their mother-country; and while they thought her a kind and tender parent,
(erroneously enough, however, for she never was such a mother,) no affection could be more sincere.
But when they found her a cruel bedlam willing, like Lady Macbeth, to “dash their Brains out,” it is
no wonder if their fillial affections ceased and were changed into indignation and horror.
This radical change in the principles, opinions sentiments and affection of the people, was the real
American Revolution.
By what means, this great and important alteration in the religious, moral, political and social
character of the people of thirteen Colonies, all distinct, unconnected and independent of each other,
was begun, pursued and accomplished, it is surely interesting to Humanity to investigate, and
perpetuate to posterity. . . .
The Colonies had grown up under constitutions of government, so different, there was so great a
variety of religions, they were composed of so many different nations, their customs, manners and
habits had so little resemblance, and their intercourse had been so rare and their knowledge of each
other so imperfect, that to unite them in the same principles in theory and the same system of action
was certainly a very difficult enterprise. The complete accomplishment of it, in so short a time and
by such simple means, was perhaps a singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks
were made to strike together; a perfection of mechanism which no artist had ever before effected.
John Adams
Questions
1. Why does Adams believe that the War of Independence was not the essence of the American
Revolution?
2. What does he see as the obstacles to forging a single sense of American identity?
37. Noah Webster on Equality (1787)
Source: Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution
(Philadelphia, 1787), pp. 46–47.
Americans of the revolutionary generation were preoccupied with the social conditions of freedom.
Could a republic survive with a sizable dependent class of citizens? In the excerpt that follows, from
a pamphlet published in 1787, the educator and political writer Noah Webster identified equality as
essential for the stability of republican government. Citing and amending the teachings of the French
political theorist Montesquieu, Webster proclaimed, “A general and tolerably equal distribution of
landed property is the whole basis of national freedom.” “Equality,” he added, was “the very soul of
a republic.”
To most free Americans, “equality” meant equal opportunity, rather than equality of condition. Many
leaders of the Revolution nevertheless assumed that in the exceptional circumstances of the New
World, with its vast areas of available land and large population of independent farmers and artisans,
the natural workings of society would enable all free Americans to acquire land and achieve, if not
complete equality, at least the economic independence necessary for political “virtue.”
IN AMERICA, WE begin our empire with more popular privileges than the Romans ever enjoyed. We
have not to struggle against a monarch or an aristocracy—power is lodged in the mass of the people.
On reviewing the English history, we observe a progress similar to that in Rome—an incessant
struggle for liberty from the date of Magna Charta, in John’s reign, to the revolution. The struggle
has been successful, by abridging the enormous power of the nobility. But we observe that the power
of the people has increased in an exact proportion to their acquisitions of property. Wherever the
right of primogeniture is established, property must accumulate and remain in families. Thus the
landed property in England will never be sufficiently distributed, to give the powers of government
wholly into the hands of the people. But to assist the struggle for liberty, commerce has interposed,
and in conjunction with manufacturers, thrown a vast weight of property into the democratic scale.
Wherever we cast our eyes, we see this truth, that property is the basis of power; and this, being
established as a cardinal point, directs us to the means of preserving our freedom. Make laws,
irrevocable laws in every state, destroying and barring entailments; leave real estates to revolve from
hand to hand, as time and accident may direct; and no family influence can be acquired and
established for a series of generations—no man can obtain dominion over a large territory—the
laborious and saving, who are generally the best citizens, will possess each his share of property and
power, and thus the balance of wealth and power will continue where it is, in the body of the people.
A general and tolerably equal distribution of landed property is the whole basis of national freedom:
The system of the great Montesquieu will ever be erroneous, till the words property or lands in fee
simple are substituted for virtue, throughout his Spirit of Laws.
Virtue, patriotism, or love of country, never was and never will be, till mens’ natures are changed, a
fixed, permanent principle and support of government. But in an agricultural country, a general
possession of land in fee simple, may be rendered perpetual, and the inequalities introduced by
commerce, are too fluctuating to endanger government. An equality of property, with a necessity of
alienation, constantly operating to destroy combinations of powerful families, is the very soul of a
republic—While this continues, the people will inevitably possess both power and freedom; when
this is lost, power departs, liberty expires, and a commonwealth will inevitably assume some other
form.
The liberty of the press, trial by jury, the Habeas Corpus writ, even Magna Charta itself, although
justly deemed the palladia of freedom, are all inferior considerations, when compared with a general
distribution of real property among every class of people. The power of entailing estates is more
dangerous to liberty and republican government, than all the constitutions that can be written on
paper, or even than a standing army. Let the people have property, and they will have power—a
power that will for ever be exerted to prevent a restriction of the press, and abolition of trial by jury,
or the abridgement of any other privilege. The liberties of America, therefore, and her forms of
government, stand on the broadest basis. Removed from the fears of a foreign invasion and conquest,
they are not exposed to the convulsions that shake other governments; and the principles of freedom
are so general and energetic, as to exclude the possibility of a change in our republican constitutions.
Questions
1. Why does Webster consider an equal distribution of landed property more important to
freedom than liberty of the press, trial by jury, and other rights?
2. Why does Webster believe the republican institutions of the United States will survive
indefinitely?
38. Liberating Indentured Servants (1784)
Source: New York Independent Journal, January 24, 1784.
The upsurge of demands for equality during the Revolution brought into question many forms of
inequality. In 1784, a group of “respectable” New Yorkers proposed to “liberate” a newly arrived
shipload of indentured servants on the grounds that their status was “contrary to . . . the idea of
liberty this country has so happily established.” The incident was one small contribution to the rapid
decline of indentured servitude, which by 1800 had all but disappeared from the United States. This
development sharpened the distinction between freedom and slavery, and between a northern
economy relying on what would come to be called “free labor” (that is, working for wages or owning
a farm or shop) and a South ever more heavily dependent on the labor of slaves.
WHEREAS THE TRAFFIC of White people, heretofore countenanced by this State while under the
arbitrary control of the British Government, is contrary to the feelings of a number of respectable
Citizens, and to the idea of liberty this country has so happily established.
And whereas it is necessary to encourage emigration to this country, upon the most liberal plan, and
for that purpose, a number of Citizens of this State, have proposed to liberate a cargo of Servants just
arrived, by paying their passage, and repaying themselves by a small rateable deduction out of the
wages of such Servants, Such of the Citizens of this State as wish to encourage so laudable an
undertaking, and if necessary, to petition the Legislature for a completion of their humane intentions,
are requested to meet at the Hyderally Tavern, the lower end of King Street, this Evening, at Six of
the Clock.
Questions
1. What practical reason does the notice give for eliminating indentured servitude?
2. Why do you think the notice singles out the sale of “White people” as contrary to liberty?
39. Letter of Phillis Wheatley (1774)
Source: Connecticut Gazette; and the Universal Intelligencer, March 11, 1774.
The revolutionary generation’s emphasis on liberty inevitably raised questions about the future of
slavery in the new republic. Many slaves saw the struggle for independence as an opportunity to
assert their own claims to freedom. This letter to the Rev. Samson Occom, a Native American poet
and Presbyterian minister, from the celebrated black poet Phillis Wheatley of Massachusetts, who
would not gain her own freedom until 1778, is an early antislavery statement pointing to the
contradiction between the revolutionary language of liberty and the continued reality of slavery. But
the stark fact is that slavery survived the Revolution and continued to grow. The first national census,
in 1790, revealed that despite the many who had become free through state laws, voluntary
manumission, and escape, there were 700,000 slaves in the United states—200,000 more than in
1776.
REV’D AND HONOR’D SIR,
I have this Day received your obliging kind epistle, and am greatly satisfied with your reasons
respecting the Negroes, and think highly reasonable what you offer in vindication of their natural
rights: Those that invade them cannot be insensible that the divine light is chasing away the thick
darkness which broods over the land of Africa; and the chaos which has reign’d so long, is
converting into beautiful order, and reveals more and more clearly, the glorious dispensation of civil
and religious Liberty, which are so inseparably limited, that there is little or no enjoyment of one
without the other.
Otherwise, perhaps, the Israelites had been less solicitous for their freedom from Egyptian slavery; I
do not say they would have been contented without it, by no means, for in every human breast, God
has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom; it is impatient of oppression, and pants for
deliverance; and by the leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same principle lives in
us. God grant deliverance in his own way and time, and get him honour upon all those whose avarice
impels them to countenance and help forward the calamities of their fellow creatures.
This I desire not for their hurt, but to convince them of the strange absurdity of their conduct whose
words and actions are so diametrically, opposite. How well the cry for liberty, and the reverse
disposition for the exercise of oppressive power over others agree,—I humbly think it does not
require the penetration of a philosopher to determine.
Questions
1. What does Wheatley mean by the “absurdity” of Americans’ conduct?
2. How does she use the language of the white revolutionaries to argue for an end to slavery?
40. Benjamin Rush, Thoughts upon
Female Education (1787)
Source: The Universal Asylum and The Columbian Magazine, April 1790, pp. 209–13, May
1790, 288–92.
A leader of the struggle for independence in Pennsylvania and a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, Benjamin Rush was also a physician and a leading reformer, an advocate of the
abolition of slavery and capital punishment, and a proponent of public education. In 1787, in a
speech to the Board of Visitors of the Young Ladies Academy of Philadelphia, Rush explained why
conditions of life in the United States and the republican form of government established by the
Revolution made it imperative to extend educational opportunities to American women. Rush was
hardly a believer in full equality for women. Their political role, he believed, was to train their sons
in “the principles of liberty” so that they could act as virtuous citizens. But he also noted that many
economic opportunities were open to American women that did not exist in Europe and that to take
advantage of them, women needed greater access to education than they had enjoyed in the past.
Rush’s lecture illustrates how the struggle for independence threw into question many long-standing
assumptions about how society should be organized.
THE EDUCATION OF young ladies, in this country, should be conducted upon principles very different
from what it is in Great Britain, and in some respects different from what it was when we were part
of a monarchical empire.
There are several circumstances in the situation, employments, and duties of women, in America,
which require a peculiar mode of education.
1. I. The early marriages of our women, by contracting the time allowed for education, render it
necessary to contract its plan, and to confine it chiefly to the more useful branches of literature.
2. II. The state of property, in America, renders it necessary for the greatest part of our citizens to
employ themselves, in different occupations, for the advancement of their fortunes. This
cannot be done without the assistance of the female members of the community. They must be
the stewards, and guardians of their husbands’ property. That education, therefore, will be
most proper for our women, which teaches them to discharge the duties of those offices with
the most success and reputation.
3. III. . . . A principal share of the instruction of children naturally devolves upon the women. It
becomes us therefore to prepare them by a suitable education, for the discharge of this most
important duty of mothers.
4. IV. The equal share that every citizen has in the liberty, and the possible share he may have in
the government, of our country, make it necessary that our ladies should be qualified to a
certain degree by a peculiar and suitable education, to concur in instructing their sons in the
principles of liberty and government. . . .
The branches of literature most essential for a young lady, in this country, appear to be,
1. I. A knowledge of the English language. She should not only read, but speak and spell it
correctly. The usual mode of teaching English syntax by means of rules committed to memory,
appears to be as absurd as to teach a child to walk, by instructing it in the names and powers of
the muscles which move the lower extremities. . . . Familiar conversations are alone proper for
this purpose. . . .
2. II. Pleasure and interest conspire to make the writing of a fair and legible hand, a necessary
branch of female education. . . .
3. III. Some knowledge of figures and book-keeping is absolutely necessary to qualify a young
lady for the duties which await her in this country. . . .
4. IV. An acquaintance with geography and some instruction in chronology will enable a young
lady to read history, biography, and travels, with advantage; and thereby qualify her not only
for a general intercourse with the world, but, to be an agreeable companion for a sensible man.
To these branches of knowledge may be added, in some instances, a general acquaintance with
the . . . principles of chemistry, and natural philosophy, particularly with such parts of them as
are applicable to domestic and culinary purposes.
5. V. Vocal music should never be neglected, in the education of a young lady, in this country.
Besides preparing her to join in that part of public worship which consists in psalmody, it will
enable her to soothe the cares of domestic life.
6. VI. Dancing is by no means an improper branch of education for an American lady. It
promotes health and renders the figure and motions of the body easy and agreeable. I
anticipate the time when the resources of conversation shall be so far multiplied, that the
amusement of dancing shall be wholly confined to children. But in our present state of society
and knowledge, I conceive it to be an agreeable substitute for the ignoble pleasures of
drinking, and gaming, in our assemblies of grown people.
7. VII. The attention of our young ladies should be directed, as soon as they are prepared for it, to
the reading of history-travels-poetry and moral essays . . . they subdue that passion for reading
novels, which so generally prevails among the fair sex. . . . They (novels) hold up life, it is
true, but it is not as yet life, in America. Our passions have not as yet ‘overstepped the modesty
of nature.’ . . .
Let, therefore, all the branches of education which have been mentioned be connected with regular
instruction in the Christian religion. . . . The female breast is the natural soil of Christianity.
Questions
1. What role does Rush foresee for women in the new American republic?
2. What benefits does he anticipate for society and the family from extending educational
opportunities to women?
CHAPTER 7
Founding a Nation, 1783–1791
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
41. Petition of Inhabitants West of the Ohio River (1785) 123
42. David Ramsey, American Innovations in Government (1789)
43. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, “What, Then, Is the American?” (1782) 127
44. James Winthrop, The Anti-Federalist Argument (1787)
45. Thomas Jefferson on Race and Slavery (1781)
41. Petition of Inhabitants West of the
Ohio River (1785)
Source: Petition, signed by sixty persons, April 11, 1785, in Archer B. Hulbert, ed., Ohio in the
Time of the Confederation (Marietta, 1918), pp. 103–6.
After independence, American leaders believed that the republic’s economic health required that
farmers have access to land in the West. But they also saw land sales as a potential source of revenue
and worried that unregulated settlement would produce endless conflicts with the Indians. Land
companies, which lobbied Congress vigorously, hoped to profit by purchasing real estate and
reselling it to settlers. The government, they insisted, should step aside and allow private groups to
take control of the West’s economic development.
The arrival of peace triggered a large population movement from settled parts of the original states
into frontier areas like upstate New York and across the Appalachians into Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Ohio. In 1785, a group of Ohioans who had suffered severely during the War of Independence
petitioned Congress, assailing landlords and speculators who monopolized available acreage and
asking that preference in access to “vacant lands” be given to “actual settlements.” They proclaimed,
“Grant us liberty.”
TO THE HONORABLE the President of the Honorable Congress of the United States of America.
The petition, of us the subscribers now residing on the western side of the Ohio, humbly show our
grateful acknowledgments to those patriots of our country who under Divine Providence so wisely
directed and steered the helm of government in that great and unparalleled conflict for liberty,
bringing to a happy period the troubles of the states, laying the foundation . . . of the most glorious
form of government any people on earth could ever yet boast of.
• • •
Notwithstanding when the joyful sound of peace had reached our ears, we had scarce enough left us
to support the crying distresses of our families occasioned wholly by being exposed to the ravages of
a cruel and savage enemy, on an open frontier where the most of us had the misfortune to reside
through the whole continuance of the war, where the only recourse was to sit confined in forts for the
preservation of our lives, by which we were reduced almost to the lowest ebb of poverty, the greatest
part of us having no property in lands, our stocks reduced almost to nothing, our case seemed
desperate.
But viewing as it appeared to us an advantage offering of vacant lands which the alarming necessities
we were under joined with the future prospect of bettering our circumstances, invited us to enter on
those lands fully determined to comply with every requisition of the legislature. . . . With hopes of
future happiness we sat content in the enjoyment of our scanty morsel, thinking ourself safe under
the protection of government, when on the fifth of this instant we were visited by a command of men
sent by the commandant at Fort McIntosh, with orders from government . . . to dispossess us and to
destroy our dwellings . . . by which order it now appears our conduct in settling here is considered by
the legislature to be prejudicial to the common good, of which we had not the least conception until
now. We are greatly distressed in our present circumstances, and humbly pray if you in your wisdom
think proper to grant us liberty, to rest where we are and to grant us the preference to our actual
settlements when the land is to be settled by order of the government.
• • •
Questions
1. Who do the authors of the petition consider to be the greatest enemies of their liberty?
2. Who do the authors claim ought to have preference when western land is distributed?
42. David Ramsey, American Innovations
in Government (1789)
Source: David Ramsey, The History of the American Revolution (2 vols.: Philadelphia, 1789),
pp. 355–57.
A member of the Continental Congress from South Carolina, David Ramsey published his history of
the Revolution in the year the Constitution was ratified. In this excerpt, he lauds the principles of
representative government, and the right of future amendment, embodied in the state constitutions
and adopted in the national one, as unique American political principles and the best ways of
securing liberty. Like many Americans of his era, Ramsey insisted that the political system of the
United States was fundamentally different from that of Europe, and offered an opportunity to
demonstrate to the rest of the world humankind’s capacity for self-government.
THE FAMED SOCIAL compact between the people and their rulers, did not apply to the United States.
The sovereignty was in the people. In their sovereign capacity by their representatives, they agreed
on forms of government for their own security, and deputed certain individuals as their agents to
serve them in public stations agreeably to constitutions, which prescribed their conduct.
The world has not hitherto exhibited so fair an opportunity for promoting social happiness. It is
hoped for the honor of human nature, that the result will prove the fallacy of those theories that
mankind are incapable of self government. The ancients, not knowing the doctrine of representation,
were apt in their public meetings to run into confusion, but in America this mode of taking the sense
of the people, is so well understood, and so completely reduced to system, that its most populous
states are often peaceably convened in an assembly of deputies, not too large for orderly deliberation,
and yet representing the whole in equal proportion. These popular branches of legislature are
miniature pictures of the community, and from their mode of election are likely to be influenced by
the same interests and feelings with the people whom they represent. . . . These circumstances give
us as great a security that laws will be made, and government administered for the good of the
people, as can be expected from the imperfection of human institutions.
In this view of the formation and establishment of the American constitutions, we behold our species
in a new situation. In no age before, and in no other country, did man ever possess an election of the
kind of government, under which he would choose to live. The constituent parts of the ancient free
governments were thrown together by accident. The freedom of modern European governments was,
for the most part, obtained by concessions, or liberality of monarchs, or military leaders. In America
alone, reason and liberty concurred in the formation of constitutions. . . . In one thing they were all
perfect. They left the people in the power of altering and amending them, whenever they pleased. In
this happy peculiarity they placed the science of politics on a footing with the other sciences, by
opening it to improvements from experience, and the discoveries of future ages. By means of this
power of amending American constitutions, the friends of mankind have fondly hoped that
oppression will one day be no more.
Questions
1. In what ways, according to Ramsey, does the formation of governments in the United States
differ from precedents in other times and places?
2. Why does Ramsey feel that the power to amend the Constitution is so important a political
innovation?
43. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur,
“What, Then, Is the American?” (1782)
Source: J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (London, 1782),
pp. 48–56.
In the era of the Revolution, many foreigners celebrated the United States as not only an independent
nation but a new society, in which individuals could enjoy opportunities unknown in the Old World
and where a new nationality was being forged from the diverse populations of Europe. No one
promoted this image of America more enthusiastically than J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, who
had settled in New York and married the daughter of a prominent landowner, after serving in the
French army fighting the British during the Seven Years’ War. He later returned to France and
published a glowing account of life in the United States, entitled Letters from an American Farmer.
As one who had lived in both Europe and the United States, he outlined the differences a newcomer
was likely to note between the two societies. His description of the emergence of a “new man” from
the diverse populations of Europe would later be popularized as the idea of the American melting
pot.
I WISH I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present
themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands on this continent. He must
greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this fair country discovered and settled; he must
necessarily feel a share of national pride, when he views the chain of settlements which embellishes
these extended shores. When he says to himself, this is the work of my countrymen, who, when
convulsed by factions, afflicted by a variety of miseries and wants, restless and impatient, took
refuge here. They brought along with them their national genius, to which they principally owe what
liberty they enjoy, and what substance they possess.
Here he sees the industry of his native country displayed in a new manner, and traces in their works
the embryos of all the arts, sciences, and ingenuity which flourish in Europe. Here he beholds fair
cities, substantial villages, extensive fields, an immense country filled with decent houses, good
roads, orchards, meadows, and bridges, where a hundred years ago all was wild, woody and
uncultivated! . . . He is arrived on a new continent; a modern society offers itself to his
contemplation, different from what he had hitherto seen. It is not composed, as in Europe, of great
lords who possess every thing and of a herd of people who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical
families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a
few a very visible one; no great manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury.
The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns
excepted, we are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of
cultivators, scattered over an immense territory communicating with each other by means of good
roads and navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws,
without dreading their power, because they are equitable. We are all animated with the spirit of an
industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself. If he travels
through our rural districts he views not the hostile castle, and the haughty mansion, contrasted with
the clay-built hut and miserable cabin, where cattle and men help to keep each other warm, and dwell
in meanness, smoke, and indigence. A pleasing uniformity of decent competence appears throughout
our habitations. The meanest of our log-houses is a dry and comfortable habitation. Lawyer or
merchant are the fairest titles our towns afford; that of a farmer is the only appellation of the rural
inhabitants of our country. . . . We have no princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed: we are the
most perfect society now existing in the world. Here man is free; as he ought to be. . . .
The next wish of this traveler will be to know whence came all these people? they are mixture of
English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race
now called Americans have arisen. . . . In this great American asylum, the poor of Europe have by
some means met together. . . . Urged by a variety of motives, here they came. Every thing has tended
to regenerate them; new laws, a new mode of living, a new social system; here they are become men:
in Europe they were as so many useless plants, wanting vegitative mould, and refreshing showers;
they withered, and were mowed down by want, hunger, and war. . . .
What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or the descendant of an
European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. . . . He is an
American, who leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from
the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds.
Questions
1. What characteristics of American life does Crèvecoeur emphasize as being different from
European society?
2. What aspects of society, and what parts of the American people, are left out of his description?
44. James Winthrop, The Anti-Federalist
Argument (1787)
Source: E. H. Scott, ed., The Federalist and Other Constitutional Papers (Chicago, 1894), vol. 2,
pp. 515–16, 554–55.
Opponents of the ratification of the Constitution, called Anti-Federalists, insisted that the document
shifted the balance between liberty and power too far in the direction of the latter. Anti-Federalists
repeatedly predicted that the new government would fall under the sway of merchants, creditors, and
others hostile to the interests of ordinary Americans. Popular self-government, they claimed,
flourished best in small communities, where rulers and ruled interacted daily. They warned that the
absence of a Bill of Rights meant that the federal government could trample on such rights as trial by
jury and freedom of speech and the press.
The excerpt below, from one of a series of newspaper articles published by James Winthrop, the
librarian of Harvard College, under the pen name Agrippa, illustrates some of the Anti-Federalists’
arguments. Winthrop repudiated Madison’s equation of an “extensive republic” with security for
liberty as “contrary to the whole experience of mankind.” He insisted that large states inevitably
sought to enforce a uniformity that ignored local difference. A Bill of Rights, moreover, was
essential as a defense against tyranny. It was “as necessary,” Winthrop wrote, “to defend an
individual against the majority in a republic as against the king in a monarchy.” The AntiFederalists’ insistence was the primary reason why Congress and the states added the Bill of Rights
to the Constitution soon after ratification.
IT IS THE opinion of the ablest writers on the subject, that no extensive empire can be governed upon
republican principles, and that such a government will degenerate to a despotism, unless it be made
up of a confederacy of smaller states, each having the full powers of internal regulation. This is
precisely the principle which has hitherto preserved our freedom. No instance can be found of any
free government of considerable extent which has been supported upon any other plan. Large and
consolidated empires may indeed dazzle the eyes of a distant spectator with their splendor, but if
examined more nearly are always found to be full of misery. The reason is obvious. In large states
the same principles of legislation will not apply to all the parts. The inhabitants of warmer climates
are more dissolute in their manners, and less industrious, than in colder countries. A degree of
severity is, therefore, necessary with one which would cramp the spirit of the other. We accordingly
find that the very great empires have always been despotick. They have indeed tried to remedy the
inconveniences to which the people were exposed by local regulations; but these contrivances have
never answered the end. The laws not being made by the people, who felt the inconveniences, did not
suit their circumstances. It is under such tyranny that the Spanish provinces languish, and such would
be our misfortune and degradation, if we should submit to have the concerns of the whole empire
managed by one legislature. To promote the happiness of the people it is necessary that there should
be local laws; and it is necessary that those laws should be made by the representatives of those who
are immediately subject to the want of them. By endeavoring to suit both extremes, both are injured.
It is impossible for one code of laws to suit Georgia and Massachusetts. They must, therefore,
legislate for themselves. Yet there is, I believe, not one point of legislation that is not surrendered in
the proposed plan. Questions of every kind respecting property are determinable in a continental
court, and so are all kinds of criminal causes. The continental legislature has, therefore, a right to
make rules in all cases by which their judicial courts shall proceed and decide causes. No rights are
reserved to the citizens. The laws of Congress are in all cases to be the supreme law of the land, and
paramount to the constitutions of the individual states. The Congress may institute what modes of
trial they please, and no plea drawn from the constitution of any state can avail. This new system is,
therefore, a consolidation of all the states into one large mass, however diverse the parts may be of
which it is to be composed. The idea of an uncompounded republick, on an average one thousand
miles in length, and eight hundred in breadth, and containing six millions of white inhabitants all
reduced to the same standard of morals, of habits, and of laws, is in itself an absurdity, and contrary
to the whole experience of mankind. The attempt made by Great Britain to introduce such a system,
struck us with horror, and when it was proposed by some theorist that we should be represented in
parliament, we uniformly declared that one legislature could not represent so many different interests
for the purposes of legislation and taxation. This was the leading principle of the revolution, and
makes an essential article in our creed. All that part, therefore, of the system, which relates to the
internal government of the states, ought at once to be rejected.
• • •
It is now generally understood that it is for the security of the people that the powers of the
government should be lodged in different branches. By this means public business will go on when
they all agree, and stop when they disagree. The advantage of checks in government is thus
manifested where the concurrence of different branches is necessary to the same act, but the
advantage of a division of business is advantageous in other respects. As in every extensive empire,
local laws are necessary to suit the different interests, no single legislature is adequate to the
business. All human capacities are limited to a narrow space, and as no individual is capable of
practicing a great variety of trades, no single legislature is capable of managing all the variety of
national and state concerns. Even if a legislature was capable of it, the business of the judicial
department must, from the same cause, be slovenly done. Hence arises the necessity of a division of
the business into national and local. Each department ought to have all the powers necessary for
executing its own business, under such limitations as tend to secure us from any inequality in the
operations of government. I know it is often asked against whom in a government by representation
is a bill of rights to secure us? I answer, that such a government is indeed a government by ourselves;
but as a just government protects all alike, it is necessary that the sober and industrious part of the
community should be defended from the rapacity and violence of the vicious and idle. A bill of
rights, therefore, ought to set forth the purposes for which the compact is made, and serves to secure
the minority against the usurpation and tyranny of the majority. It is a just observation of his
excellency, Doctor [John] Adams, in his learned defence of the American constitutions that unbridled
passions produce the same effect, whether in a king, nobility, or a mob. The experience of all
mankind has proved the prevalence of a disposition to use power wantonly. It is therefore as
necessary to defend an individual against the majority in a republic as against the king in a
monarchy.
• • •
Questions
1. To what provisions of the Constitution does Winthrop refer in arguing that the new
government will endanger liberty?
2. Why does Winthrop claim that the “leading principle of the revolution” is violated by the new
Constitution?
45. Thomas Jefferson on Race and
Slavery (1781)
Source: Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Philadelphia, 1788), pp. 145–53, 172–
73.
No American of the revolutionary generation did more to shape prevailing views on race than
Thomas Jefferson. His writings reflected a divided, even tortured mind. In Notes on the State of
Virginia, written in 1781 and published a few years later, Jefferson ruminated on whether blacks
should be considered inferior to whites. Although generally, Jefferson attributed different peoples’
varying degrees of civilization to environmental factors, he concluded that what he considered
blacks’ inferiority was innate. Jefferson made clear that he understood that slavery violated the
principles of the Declaration of Independence he had written. He looked forward to the day when
slaves would be emancipated. But, he insisted, once freed, they must be removed from the United
States. Blacks, in Jefferson’s view, could never become equal members of the American nation.
MANY OF THE laws which were in force during the monarchy being relative merely to that form of
government, or inculcating principles inconsistent with republicanism, the first assembly which met
after the establishment of the commonwealth appointed a committee to revise the whole code. . . .
The following are the most remarkable alterations proposed. . . .
To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act. The bill reported by the revisors does not itself
contain this proposition; but an amendment containing it was prepared, to be offered the legislature
whenever the bill should be taken up, and further directing, that they should continue with their
parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage, arts or sciences,
according to their geniusses, till the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of
age, when they should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render
most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of household and of the handicraft arts, seeds,
pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independant people, and extend
to them our alliance and protection, till they have acquired strength; and to send vessels to the other
parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper
encouragements were to be proposed. It will probably be asked, Why not retain and incorporate the
blacks into the state, and thus save the expence of supplying, by importation of white settlers, the
vacancies they will leave? Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand
recollections, by the blacks, of the injuries they have sustained; new provocations; the real
distinctions which nature has made; and many other circumstances, will divide us into parties, and
produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the extermination of one or the other race.
• • •
—To these objections, which are political, may be added others, which are physical and moral. The
first difference which strikes us is that of colour. Whether the black of the negro resides in the
reticular membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin itself; whether it proceeds
from the colour of the blood, the colour of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the
difference is fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known to us. And is this
difference of no importance? Is it not the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two
races? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expressions of every passion by greater or less
suffusions of colour in the one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the
countenances, that immoveable veil of black which covers all the emotions of the other race? . . .
They seem to require less sleep. A black after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the
slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later though knowing he must be out with the first
dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps
proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When
present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more
ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate
mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which
render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner
forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than
reflection. . . .
—The opinion, that they are inferior in the faculties of reason and imagination, must be hazarded
with great diffidence. To justify a general conclusion, requires many observations, even where the
subject may be submitted to the anatomical knife, to optical glasses, to analysis by fire, or by
solvents. How much more then where it is a faculty, not a substance, we are examining; where it
eludes the research of all the senses; where the conditions of its existence are various and variously
combined; where the effects of those which are present or absent bid defiance to calculation; let me
add too, as a circumstance of great tenderness, where our conclusion would degrade a whole race of
men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them. . . . I
advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made
distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and
mind. . . .
There must doubtless be an unhappy influence on the manners of our people produced by the
existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual
exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and
degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an
imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is
learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or
his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it would always be a
sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child
looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives
a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but
be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners
and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be
loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms
those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae
of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that
in which he is born to live and labour for another: in which he must lock up the faculties of his
nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavours to the evanishment of the human
race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the
morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for
himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very
small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure
when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these
liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble
for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.
Questions
1. What reasons does Jefferson offer for colonizing blacks outside the United States in the event
of emancipation?
2. How does Jefferson describe the effect of slavery on the morals and behavior of white
Virginians?
CHAPTER 8
Securing the Republic, 1791–1815
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
46. Benjamin F. Bache, A Defense of the French Revolution (1792–1793)
47. Address of the Democratic-Republican Society of Pennsylvania (1794)
48. Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes” (1790)
49. Protest against the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798)
50. George Tucker on Gabriel’s Rebellion (1801)
51. Tecumseh, Speech to the Osage (1810)
52. Felix Grundy, Battle Cry of the War Hawks (1811)
53. Mercy Otis Warren on Religion and Virtue (1805)
46. Benjamin F. Bache, A Defense of the
French Revolution (1792–1793)
Source: The General Advertiser (Philadelphia), December 12, 1792, January 25, 1793.
The French Revolution reverberated strongly in the United States. From its outbreak in 1789,
Americans eagerly followed the course of events. Initially, nearly all Americans hailed the overthrow
of the monarchy as a fulfillment of the ideals of their own revolution. But as France descended into
bloodshed and war broke out between Great Britain and France, Federalists condemned the
Revolution, and Republicans remained sympathetic while criticizing its excesses. In his editorials for
the Philadelphia newspaper he edited, Benjamin Franklin Bache, a grandson of Benjamin Franklin
and himself a leading Republican, defended the actions of the French revolutionaries, insisting that a
long-established system of “despotism” could not be overthrown without turmoil. The opposition to
change, he insisted, was more deeply entrenched in France than it had been in America, and hence
the struggle for liberty had to be more extreme.
Later, in the 1790s, Bache was arrested under the Sedition Act, which made it a crime to criticize the
policies of President John Adams. His experience illustrates how early American politics was
profoundly influenced by events elsewhere in the Atlantic world.
IN ADVERTING TO the present disastrous situation of France, many, perhaps may be inclined to
reprobate that revolution which has produced effects so horrible. But if we survey the effects with the
eye of cool deliberation, we shall find that though they certainly emanated from the revolution, yet
that our reprobation ought to be turned into another channel. The change which took place in the
system of government, emancipated twenty-four millions of the human species.—Prima facie,
therefore, the most cautious reasoning must allow it to be an event of infinite advantage to the world.
But though it was effected with the consent and support of nine parts out of ten, yet the tenth part
viewed it in a different light. A long series of years had transmitted to them hereditary rights &
privileges which placed them above the great body of the nation. The King exercised a despotic
power without restraint. The nobles described around them a circle equally tyrannical, though of
extent less ample. To those who know how dear the possession of power to the human mind, it will
not appear strange that such persons should view the revolution with the eye of anger, in as much as
it wrested from them those exclusive rights which had descended to them covered with the reverend
rust of antiquity; neither will it be a matter of wonder that they should attempt to impede the progress
of a system to them so distasteful. . . . Let us recollect, that though much blood may be shed ere
Liberty be firmly established; yet that when it shall be established the effusion will cease. A system
of Despotism, however, cannot be supported without blood, and we have no reason to believe that as
long as it continues, the sanguinary torrent will ever cease. Until we know the real cause of those
ferocious acts, which no honest man can approve nor no honest man contemplate without horror, it is
treason against a good cause to attribute them to the friends of the Revolution. . . .
There is that difference between the French and American Revolutions, that the latter was not
opposed by cunning priests, nor cruel aristocrats determined to overthrow every principle of honesty
and humanity. . . . A royal puppet on this spot, did not dance on the wire of a band of courtiers; the
most despicable and abandoned wretches that ever disgraced mankind. The focus of both despotism
and nobility was far from this land of liberty, and its glorious adherents could not be infected with
the pernicious breath of mad royalty and impudent aristocracy. The popular cause was opposed
openly, sword in hand, and victoriously fought by the friends to the rights of men; had the French
republicans met with such opponents, they had not done those excesses, the king, the nobles and
clergy have roused them to by the most perfidious contrivances. A king did not forswear himself in
America, nor had the American people more than one [Benedict] Arnold; their tempers were soured
neither by misery nor by a complicated system of treachery, framed coolly and pursued with the
greatest obstinacy. The American people were not loaded with enormous taxes that had reduced
millions of their fellow citizens to the utmost misery to maintain haughty plunderers in sloth and
profligacy. All this odds must be reckoned by impartial men; to explain the difference insidiously
delineated between the two revolutions, by some desperate royalty, or a narrow minded plan.
Questions
1. Why does Bache believe that Americans should support the French Revolution despite the
bloodshed taking place in France?
2. What does he see as the similarities and differences between the American and French
Revolutions?
47. Address of the Democratic-Republican
Society of Pennsylvania (1794)
Source: Democratic-Republican Society of Pennsylvania, Excerpt from Minutes, December 18,
1794, Democratic Society of Pennsylvania Minutes [Am.315], Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Another example of the spread of public involvement in politics during the 1790s was the emergence
in 1793 and 1794 of the Democratic-Republic societies. The societies harshly criticized the policies
of George Washington’s administration, which they claimed were planting the seeds of aristocracy in
the United States.
Federalists saw the societies as an example of how American freedom was getting out of hand. The
government, not “self-created societies,” declared the president, was the authentic voice of the
American people. They also accused the societies of helping to foment the Whiskey Rebellion of
1794, in which farmers in western Pennsylvania resisted paying a new federal tax on distilled liquor.
Forced to justify their existence, the societies developed a defense of the right of the people to debate
political issues and organize to affect public policy. As a statement adopted by the DemocraticRepublican Society of Pennsylvania insisted, “freedom of opinion” was the “bulwark of liberty,” a
natural right that no government could restrict.
THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY of Pennsylvania, established in Philadelphia, to their Fellow Citizens
throughout the United States.
FELLOW CITIZENS,
The principles and proceedings of our Association have lately been calumniated. We should think
ourselves unworthy to be ranked as Freemen, if awed by the name of any man, however he may
command the public gratitude for past services, we could suffer in silence so sacred a right, so
important a principle, as the freedom of opinion to be infringed, by attack on Societies which stand
on that constitutional basis.
We shall not imitate our opponents, by resorting to declamation and abuse, instead of calm
reasoning, and substituting assertion for proof. They have termed us anarchists; they have accused us
of fomenting the unfortunate troubles in the western counties of this State:—yet not a single fact
have they been able to adduce in support of the charge,—They have accused us of aiming at the
overthrow of the Constitution; and this also rests upon their bare assertion. Neither shall we
recriminate; though we might with at least as much plausibility assert, that endeavours to crush the
freedom of opinion and of speech, denote liberticide intentions. But we shall content ourselves with a
bare examination of the question, which has agitated the public mind; and refute the calumnies
heaped on our Institution.
Freedom of thought, and a free communication of opinions by speech or through the medium of the
press, are the safeguards of our Liberties. Apathy as to public concerns, too frequent even in
Republics, is the reason for usurpation: by the communication or collision of sentiments, knowledge
is increased, and truth prevails.
By the freedom of opinion, cannot be meant the right of thinking merely; for of this right the greatest
Tyrant cannot deprive his meanest slave; but, it is freedom in the communication of sentiments, [by]
speech or through the press. This liberty is an imprescriptable right, independent of any Constitution
or social compact: it is as complete a right as that which any man has to the enjoyment of his life.
These principles are eternal—they are recognized by our Constitution; and that nation is already
enslaved that does not acknowledge their truth.
In the expression of sentiments, speech is the natural organ—the press an artificial one and though
the latter, from the services it has rendered, has obtained the just appellation of Bulwark of Liberty; it
would not be difficult to show that the former should be more prized because more secure from
usurpation.
If freedom of opinion, in the sense we understand it, is the right of every Citizen, by what mode of
reasoning can that right be denied to an assemblage of Citizens? A conviction that the exercise of this
right collectively could not be questioned, led to the formation of our institution; and in the conduct
the Society have held since their first establishment, they trust, no instance can be adduced in which
they have overstepped the just bounds of the right, of which they claim the enjoyment. . . .
• • •
The Society are free to declare that they never were more strongly impressed with a sentiment of the
importance of associations, on the principles which they hold, than at the present time. The germ of
an odious Aristocracy is planted among us—it has taken root,—and has indeed already produced
fruit worthy of the parent stock. If it be imprudent to eradicate this baneful exotic, let us at least unite
in checking its growth. Let us remain firm in attachment to principles, and with a jealous eye guard
our rights against the least infringement. The enlightened state of the public mind in this country,
frees us, we trust, of all apprehension from bold and open usurpation; but the gradual approaches of
artful ambition, are the source of great danger. Let us especially guard, with firmness, the outposts of
our Liberties: and, if we wish to baffle the efforts of the enemies of freedom, whatever garb they may
assume, let us be particularly watchful to preserve inviolate the freedom of opinion, assured that it is
the most effectual weapon for the protection of our liberty.
Resolved, That the said Address be signed by the President and attested by the Acting Secretary: and
that it be published.
Questions
1. How do the members of the Democratic-Republican Society defend their right to form a
society that comments on public affairs?
2. What do they mean by writing that “the germ of an odious Aristocracy” has been planted in the
United States?
48. Judith Sargent Murray, “On the
Equality of the Sexes” (1790)
Source: Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes,” Massachusetts Magazine, vol. 2
(March 1790), pp. 132–35.
The expansion of the public sphere during the era of the Revolution offered women an opportunity to
take part in political discussions, read newspapers, and hear orations even though outside of New
Jersey they could not vote. Judith Sargent Murray, one of the era’s most accomplished American
women, wrote plays, novels, and poetry. She also wrote essays on public issues for the
Massachusetts Magazine and other journals under the pen name “The Gleaner.”
Although Murray could not attend college because of her sex, she studied alongside her brother with
a tutor preparing the young man for admission to Harvard. In her essay “On the Equality of the
Sexes,” written in 1779 and published in 1790, Murray insisted that women had as much right as
men to exercise all their talents and should be allowed equal educational opportunities to enable them
to do so. Murray forthrightly demanded “equality” for women and attacked the common idea that
women’s happiness rested on devoting themselves to their duties within the family.
• • •
IS IT UPON mature consideration we adopt the idea, that nature is thus partial in her distributions? Is it
indeed a fact, that she hath yielded to one half of the human species so unquestionable a mental
superiority? I know that to both sexes elevated understandings, and the reverse, are common. But,
suffer me to ask, in what the minds of females are so notoriously deficient, or unequal. May not the
intellectual powers be ranged under these four heads—imagination, reason, memory and judgment.
The province of imagination hath long since been surrendered up to us, and we have been crowned
undoubted sovereigns of the regions of fancy. Invention is perhaps the most arduous effort of the
mind; this branch of imagination hath been particularly ceded to us, and we have been time out of
mind invested with that creative faculty. Observe the variety of fashions (here I bar the contemptuous
smile) which distinguish and adorn the female world; how continually are they changing, insomuch
that they almost render the wise man’s assertion problematical, and we are ready to say, there is
something new under the sun. Now what a playfulness, what an exuberance of fancy, what strength
of inventive imagination, doth this continual variation discover?
Again, it hath been observed, that if the turpitude of the conduct of our sex, hath been ever so
enormous, so extremely ready are we, that the very first thought presents us with an apology, so
plausible, as to produce our actions even in an amiable light. Another instance of our creative
powers, is our talent for slander; how ingenious are we at inventive scandal? what a formidable story
can we in a moment fabricate merely from the force of a prolifick imagination? how many
reputations, in the fertile brain of a female, have been utterly despoiled? how industrious are we at
improving a hint? suspicion how easily do we convert into conviction, and conviction, embellished
by the power of eloquence, stalks abroad to the surprise and confusion of unsuspecting innocence.
Perhaps it will be asked if I furnish these facts as instances of excellency in our sex. Certainly not;
but as proofs of a creative faculty, of a lively imagination. Assuredly great activity of mind is thereby
discovered, and was this activity properly directed, what beneficial effects would follow. Is the
needle and kitchen sufficient to employ the operations of a soul thus organized? I should conceive
not. Nay, it is a truth that those very departments leave the intelligent principle vacant, and at liberty
for speculation.
Are we deficient in reason? we can only reason from what we know, and if an opportunity of
acquiring knowledge hath been denied us, the inferiority of our sex cannot fairly be deduced from
thence. Memory, I believe, will be allowed us in common, since every one’s experience must testify,
that a loquacious old woman is as frequently met with, as a communicative old man; their subjects
are alike drawn from the fund of other times, and the transactions of their youth, or of maturer life,
entertain, or perhaps fatigue you, in the evening of their lives. “But our judgment is not so strong—
we do not distinguish so well.”—Yet it may be questioned, from what doth this superiority, in this
determining faculty of the soul, proceed. May we not trace its source in the difference of education,
and continued advantages?
Will it be said that the judgment of a male of two years old, is more sage than that of a female’s of
the same age? I believe the reverse is generally observed to be true. But from that period what
partiality! how is the one exalted, and the other depressed, by the contrary modes of education which
are adopted! the one is taught to aspire, and the other is early confined and limited. As their years
increase, the sister must be wholly domesticated, while the brother is led by the hand through all the
flowery paths of science. Grant that their minds are by nature equal, yet who shall wonder at the
apparent superiority, if indeed custom becomes second nature; nay if it taketh place of nature, and
that it doth the experience of each day will evince. At length arrived at womanhood, the uncultivated
fair one feels a void, which the employments allotted her are by no means capable of filling. What
can she do? to books she may not apply; or if she doth, to those only of the novel kind, lest she merit
the appellation of a learned lady; and what ideas have been affixed to this term, the observation of
many can testify. Fashion, scandal, and sometimes what is still more reprehensible, are then called in
to her relief; and who can say to what lengths the liberties she takes may proceed. Meantime she
herself is most unhappy; she feels the want of a cultivated mind. Is she single, she in vain seeks to fill
up time from sexual employments or amusements. Is she united to a person whose soul nature made
equal to her own, education hath set him so far above her, that in those entertainments which are
productive of such rational felicity, she is not qualified to accompany him. She experiences a
mortifying consciousness of inferiority, which embitters every enjoyment. Doth the person to whom
her adverse fate hath consigned her, possess a mind incapable of improvement, she is equally
wretched, in being so closely connected with an individual whom she cannot but despise. Now, was
she permitted the same instructors as her brother, (with an eye however to their particular
departments) for the employment of a rational mind an ample field would be opened. . . .
Will it be urged that those acquirements would supersede our domestic duties. I answer that every
requisite in female economy is easily attained; and, with truth I can add, that when once attained,
they require no further mental attention. Nay, while we are pursuing the needle, or the
superintendency of the family, I repeat, that our minds are at full liberty for reflection; that
imagination may exert itself in full vigor; and that if a just foundation is early laid, our ideas will
then be worthy of rational beings. If we were industrious we might easily find time to arrange them
upon paper, or should avocations press too hard for such an indulgence, the hours allotted for
conversation would at least become more refined and rational. Should it still be vociferated, “Your
domestic employments are sufficient”—I would calmly ask, is it reasonable, that a candidate for
immortality, for the joys of heaven, an intelligent being, who is to spend an eternity in contemplating
the works of Deity, should at present be so degraded, as to be allowed no other ideas, than those
which are suggested by the mechanism of a pudding, or the sewing the seams of a garment? Pity that
all such censurers of female improvement do not go one step further, and deny their future existence;
to be consistent they surely ought.
Yes, ye lordly, ye haughty sex, our souls are by nature equal to yours; the same breath of God
animates, enlivens, and invigorates us; and that we are not fallen lower than yourselves, let those
witness who have greatly towered above the various discouragements by which they have been so
heavily oppressed. . . . Were we to grant that animal strength proved any thing, taking into
consideration the accustomed impartiality of nature, we should be induced to imagine, that she had
invested the female mind with superior strength as an equivalent for the bodily powers of man. But
waving this however palpable advantage, for equality only, we wish to contend.
• • •
Questions
1. Why does Murray refer to the “variety of fashions” among women as an argument for their
intellectual capacity?
2. How does she answer the charge that offering educational opportunities to women will lead to
neglect of their “domestic duties”?
49. Protest against the Alien and Sedition
Acts (1798)
Source: Jonathan Elliott, ed., The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of
the Federal Constitution, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1836–59), vol. 5, pp. 528–
29.
From the adoption of the Constitution, the relative powers of the state and federal governments have
remained a point of dispute. In 1798, faced with mounting opposition from opponents (among them
foreign-born Jeffersonian newspaper editors), President John Adams and the Federalist Party moved
to silence criticism of the administration. Congress passed the Alien Act, which allowed the
deportation of “dangerous” foreigners, and the Sedition Act, set to expire after the presidential
election of 1800, which made it a crime to criticize the government in print or a public assembly. In
response, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson wrote resolutions of protest. Virginia’s legislature
approved Madison’s and Kentucky adopted Jefferson’s. Both claimed that states could “interpose”
their power to prevent the federal government from acting in a despotic manner. Southern advocates
of nullification and secession later cited the resolutions to justify their position.
RESOLVED, THAT THE General Assembly of Virginia doth unequivocally express a firm resolution to
maintain and defend the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of this state, against
every aggression, either foreign or domestic; and that they will support the government of the United
States in all measures warranted by the former.
That this Assembly most solemnly declares a warm attachment to the union of the states, to maintain
which it pledges its powers; and that, for this end, it is their duty to watch over and oppose every
infraction of those principles which constitute the only basis of that union, because a faithful
observance of them can alone secure its existence and the public happiness.
That this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the powers of the federal
government as resulting from the compact to which the states are parties, as limited by the plain
sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no further valid than they are
authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and
dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are parties
thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and
for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining to
them.
That the General Assembly doth also express its deep regret, that a spirit has, in sundry instances,
been manifested by the federal government to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the
constitutional charter which defines them; and that indications have appeared of a design to expound
certain general phrases (which, having been copied from the very limited grant of powers in the
former Articles of Confederation, were the less liable to be misconstrued) so as to destroy the
meaning and effect of the particular enumeration which necessarily explains and limits the general
phrases, and so as to consolidate the states, by degrees, into one sovereignty, the obvious tendency
and inevitable result of which would be, to transform the present republican system of the United
States into an absolute, or, at best, a mixed monarchy.
That the General Assembly doth particularly PROTEST against the palpable and alarming
infractions of the Constitution, in the two late cases of the “Alien and Sedition Acts,” passed at the
last session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power nowhere delegated to the federal
government, and which, by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of executive, subverts the
general principles of free government, as well as the particular organization and positive provisions
of the Federal Constitution; and the other of which acts exercises, in like manner, a power not
delegated by the Constitution, but, on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the
amendments thereto,—a power which, more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm,
because it is levelled against the right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of
free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual
guardian of every other right.
That this state having, by its Convention, which ratified the Federal Constitution, expressly declared
that, among other essential rights, “the liberty of conscience and the press cannot be cancelled,
abridged, restrained, or modified, by any authority of the United States,” and from its extreme
anxiety to guard these rights from every possible attack of sophistry and ambition, having, with other
states, recommended an amendment for that purpose, which amendment was, in due time, annexed to
the Constitution,—it would mark a reproachful inconsistency, and criminal degeneracy, if an
indifference were now shown to the most palpable violation of one of the rights thus declared and
secured, and to the establishment of a precedent which may be fatal to the other.
That the good people of this commonwealth, having ever felt, and continuing to feel, the most
sincere affection for their brethren of the other states; the truest anxiety for establishing and
perpetuating the union of all; and the most scrupulous fidelity to that Constitution, which is the
pledge of mutual friendship, and the instrument of mutual happiness,—the General Assembly doth
solemnly appeal to the like dispositions in the other states, in confidence that they will concur with
this commonwealth in declaring, as it does hereby declare, that the acts aforesaid are
unconstitutional; and that the necessary and proper measures will be taken by each for cooperating
with this state, in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights, and liberties, reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people.
Questions
1. In what ways does the resolution claim that the Alien and Sedition Acts violate the principles
of “free government”?
2. How does the resolution define the relationship between the federal government and the states
under the Constitution?
50. George Tucker on Gabriel’s Rebellion
(1801)
Source: Letter to a Member of the General Assembly of Virginia on the Subject of the Late
Conspiracy of the Slaves; With a Proposal for Their Colonization (Baltimore, 1801), pp. 5–18.
In 1800, a plot by slaves in Virginia to gain their freedom was organized by a Richmond blacksmith,
Gabriel. The plot was soon discovered and the leaders arrested. Twenty-six slaves, including Gabriel,
were hanged and dozens more transported out of the state. The conspiracy, commented George
Tucker, a member of one of the state’s most prominent families, demonstrated that slaves possessed
“the love of freedom” as fully as other men. Gabriel’s language, he added, reflected “the advance of
knowledge” among Virginia’s slaves, which would inevitably continue.
Like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and many others of his generation, Tucker opposed slavery
but could not envision the United States as a biracial society of free citizens. He proposed that the
Virginia legislature adopt a plan to emancipate the slaves and settle them outside of the state,
somewhere “on the western side” of the Mississippi River (an area then under the control of Spain).
The legislature, however, moved in the opposite direction. It tightened controls over the black
population and severely restricted the ability of masters to free their slaves voluntarily.
THERE IS OFTEN a progress in human affairs which may indeed be retarded, but which nothing can
arrest. Moving on with slow and silent steps, it is marked only by comparing distant periods. The
causes which produce it are either so minute as to be invisible, or, if perceived, are too numerous and
complicated to be subject to human controul. Of such sort is the advancement of knowledge among
the negroes of this country. It is so striking, as to be obvious to a man of the most ordinary
observation. Every year adds to the number of those who can read and write; and he who has made
any proficiency in letters, becomes a little centre of instruction to others. This increase of knowledge
is the principal agent in evolving the spirit we have to fear. The love of freedom, sir, is an inborn
sentiment, which the God of nature has planted deep in the heart: long may it be kept under by the
arbitrary institutions of society; but, at the first favourable moment, it springs forth, and flourishes
with a vigour that defies all check. This celestial spark, which fires the breast of the savage, which
glows in that of the philosopher, is not extinguished in the bosom of the slave. It may be buried in the
embers; but it still lives; and the breath of knowledge kindles it into flame. Thus we find, sir, there
never have been slaves in any country, who have not seized the first favorable opportunity to revolt.
• • •
In our infant country, where population and wealth increase with unexampled rapidity, the progress
of liberal knowledge is proportionally great. In this vast march of the mind, the blacks, who are far
behind us, may be supposed to advance at a pace equal to our own; but, sir, the fact is, they are likely
to advance much faster. The growth and multiplication of our towns tend a thousand ways to
enlighten and inform them. The very nature of our government, which leads us to recur perpetually
to the discussion of natural rights, favors speculation and enquiry.
• • •
There is one argument to which I have not even hinted; but which some may think of more weight
than any other;—I mean the ease with which they may become the tools of a foreign enemy.
Granting that the danger from themselves is slight or remote, this, it must be confessed, depends
upon an event that is altogether uncertain. War is sometimes inevitable; no human prudence can
guard against an event that may be brought about by the insolence, the injustice, or the caprice of any
nation. Whenever we are involved in this calamity, if our enemies hold out the lure of freedom, they
will have, in every negro, a decided friend. The passage is easy from friends to auxiliaries: little
address would be necessary to excite insurrection; to put arms into their hands, and to convert a
willing multitude into a compact and disciplined army.
• • •
The following hints I submit to your serious and candid consideration.
That application be made to the United States, to procure from the Spanish government, or to furnish
from its own territory, such a tract of country as shall be deemed sufficient for the colony proposed.
The consideration of future peace would recommend the western side of the Mississippi. Present
convenience and economy would advise a purchase of some part of the Indian country,
comprehended within the limits of the state of Georgia.
That this colony be under the protection and immediate government of this state, or the United
States, until it contained a number of inhabitants sufficient to manage their own concerns: and that it
be exclusively appropriated to the colonization and residence of people of colour.
Questions
1. Why does Tucker think that “progress in human affairs” will inevitably lead slaves to become
more discontented?
2. In what ways does Tucker believe that living in Virginia has affected the ideas of the slaves?
51. Tecumseh, Speech to the Osage (1810)
Source: John D. Hunter, Memoirs of a Captivity among the Indians of North America, from
Childhood to the Age of Nineteen, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and
Green, 1823), pp. 45–48.
By 1800, nearly 400,000 American settlers lived west of the Appalachian Mountains. They far
outnumbered remaining Indians. While some Native Americans claimed rights as Americans, others
asserted a pan-Indian identity, insisting that all Indian nations shared a common set of values and a
common future of freedom and autonomy rather than assimilation or removal. The Shawnee leader
Tecumseh sought to rally Indians to unite as one people. He hoped to root out European influences
and resist further white encroachment on Indian lands. This speech, to Osage Indians, was recorded
by John P. Hunter, who had been held captive by the Osage since childhood.
BROTHERS—WE ALL belong to one family; we are all children of the Great Spirit; we walk in the same
path; slake our thirst at the same spring; and now affairs of the greatest concern lead us to smoke the
pipe around the same council fire!
Brothers—we are friends; we must assist each other to bear our burdens. The blood of many of our
fathers and brothers has run like water on the ground, to satisfy the avarice of the white men. We,
ourselves, are threatened with a great evil; nothing will pacify them but the destruction of all the red
men.
Brothers—When the white men first set foot on our grounds, they were hungry; they had no place on
which to spread their blankets, or to kindle their fires. They were feeble; they could do nothing for
themselves. Our fathers commiserated their distress, and shared freely with them whatever the Great
Spirit had given his red children. They gave them food when hungry, medicine when sick, spread
skins for them to sleep on, and gave them grounds, that they might hunt and raise corn. Brothers—
The white people are like poisonous serpents: when chilled they are feeble, and harmless; but
invigorate them, with warmth, and they sting their benefactors to death. The white people came
among us feeble; and now we have made them strong, they wish to kill us, or drive us back, as they
would wolves and panthers.
Brothers—The white men are not friends to the Indians: at first, they only asked for land sufficient
for a wigwam; now, nothing will satisfy them but the whole of our hunting grounds, from the rising
to the setting sun. . . .
Brothers—My people wish for peace; the red men all wish for peace: but where the white people are,
there is no peace for them, except it be on the bosom of our mother.
Brothers—The white men despise and cheat the Indians; they abuse and insult them; they do not
think the red men sufficiently good to live. The red men have borne many and great injuries; they
ought to suffer them no longer. My people will not; they are determined on vengeance; they have
taken up the tomahawk; they will make it fat with blood; they will drink the blood of the white
people.
Brothers—My people are brave and numerous; but the white people are too strong for them alone. I
wish you to take up the tomahawk with them. If we all unite, we will cause the rivers to stain the
great waters with their blood.
Brothers—if you do not unite with us, they will first destroy us, and then you will fall an easy prey to
them. They have destroyed many nations of red men because they were not united . . . they wish to
make us enemies, that they may sweep over and desolate our hunting grounds, like devastating
winds, or rushing waters.
Brothers—Our Great Father over the great waters [the king of England] is angry with the white
people, our enemies. He will send his brave warriors against them; he will send us rifles, and
whatever else we want—he is our friend, and we are his children. . . .
Brothers—We must be united; we must smoke the same pipe; we must fight each other’s battles; and
more than all, we must love the Great Spirit; he is for us; he will destroy our enemies, and make his
red children happy.
Questions:
1. How does Tecumseh’s understanding of national identity compare with that of most white
Americans of his era?
2. Why does he claim that the king of England is the Indians’ ally and what does this suggest
about his attitudes toward white people?
52. Felix Grundy, Battle Cry of the War
Hawks (1811)
Source: Annals of Congress, 12th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 425–27 (December 10, 1811).
In the months leading up to the War of 1812, a group of younger congressmen, mostly from the
West, called for war with Britain. Known as the War Hawks, this new generation of political leaders
had come of age after the winning of independence and were ardent nationalists. Their leaders
included Henry Clay of Kentucky, elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1810, and
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. The War Hawks spoke passionately of defending the national
honor against British insults, but also had more practical goals in mind, notably the annexation of
Canada. Their views were expressed in a speech in the House of Representatives by Felix Grundy of
Tennessee. To British interference with American shipping, the main concern of the Madison
administration, Grundy added the aim of acquiring Canada (British territory) and Florida (owned by
Spain) to the United States, thereby expanding the Union and undermining the remaining power of
Indian tribes.
WHAT, MR. SPEAKER, are we now called on to decide? It is, whether we will resist by force the
attempt, made by [the British] Government, to subject our maritime rights to the arbitrary and
capricious rule of her will; for my part I am not prepared to say that this country shall submit to have
her commerce interdicted or regulated, by any foreign nation. Sir, I prefer war to submission.
Over and above these unjust pretensions of the British Government, for many years past they have
been in the practice of impressing our seamen, from merchant vessels; this unjust and lawless
invasion of personal liberty, calls loudly for the interposition of this Government. To those better
acquainted with the facts in relation to it, I leave it to fill up the picture. My mind is irresistibly
drawn to the West. . . .
It cannot be believed by any man who will reflect, that the savage tribes, uninfluenced by other
Powers, would think of making war on the United States. They understand too well their own
weakness, and our strength. They have already felt the weight of our arms; they know they hold the
very soil on which they live as tenants at sufferance. How, then, sir, are we to account for their late
conduct? In one way only; some powerful nation must have intrigued with them, and turned their
peaceful disposition towards us into hostilities. Great Britain alone has intercourse with those
Northern tribes; I therefore infer, that if British gold has not been employed, their baubles and
trinkets, and the promise of support and a place of refuge if necessary, have had their effect. . . .
This war, if carried on successfully, will have its advantages. We shall drive the British from our
Continent—they will no longer have an opportunity of intriguing with our Indian neighbors, and
setting on the ruthless savage to tomahawk our women and children. That nation will lose her
Canadian trade, and, by having no resting place in this country, her means of annoying us will be
diminished. . . . I am willing to receive the Canadians as adopted brethren; it will have beneficial
political effects; it will preserve the equilibrium of the Government. When Louisiana shall be fully
peopled, the Northern States will lose their power; they will be at the discretion of others; they can be
depressed at pleasure, and then this Union might be endangered—I therefore feel anxious not only to
add the Floridas to the South, but the Canadas to the North of this empire. . . .
Questions
1. Why does Grundy think that acquiring Canada will strengthen the American Union?
2. Whom does Grundy hold responsible for Tecumseh’s uprising (the “late conduct” of the Indian
tribes he mentions)?
53. Mercy Otis Warren on Religion and
Virtue (1805)
Source: Mercy Otis Warren, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American
Revolution (3 vols.: Boston, 1805), vol. 3, pp. 412–18.
A sister of the Massachusetts patriot leader James Otis and wife of James Warren, who was
paymaster for George Washington’s army, Mercy Otis Warren emerged as one of the leading women
writers of her generation and an insightful commentator on political events. She promoted the
revolutionary cause in poetry and dramas, and advocated the addition of a Bill of Rights to the
Constitution. In 1805 she published a three-volume history of the American Revolution. In one
section, she worried about what she considered the spread of religious infidelity and declining virtue
in Europe, and wondered if the United States would eventually go down this road. But she remained
confident that Americans would not soon emulate Europe in the loss of liberty.
IT IS NEITHER a preference to republican systems, nor an attachment to monarchic or aristocratic forms
of government that disseminates the wild opinions of infidelity. It is the licentious manners of courts
of every description, the unbridled luxury of wealth, and the worst passions of men let loose on the
multitude by the example of their superiors. Bent on gratification, at the expense of every moral tie,
they have broken down the barriers of religion, and the spirit of infidelity is nourished at the fount;
thence the poisonous streams run through every grade that constitutes the mass of nations.
It may be further observed, that there is a variety of additional causes which have led to a disposition
among some part of mankind, to reject the obligations of religion, and even to deny their God. This
propensity in some may easily be elucidated, without casting any part of the odium on the spirit of
free inquiry relative to civil and political liberty, which had been widely disseminated, and had
produced two such remarkable revolutions as those of America and France. It may be imputed to the
love of novelty, the pride of opinion, and an extravagant propensity to speculate and theorize on
subjects beyond the comprehension of mortals, united with a desire of being released from the
restraints on their appetites and passions: restraints dictated both by reason and revelation; and
which, under the influence of sober reflection, forbid the indulgence of all gratifications that are
injurious to man. Further elucidations, or more abstruse causes, which contribute to lead the vain
inquirer, who steps over the line prescribed by the Author of nature, to deviations from, and
forgetfulness of its Creator, and to involve him in a labyrinth of darkness, from which his weak
reasonings can never disentangle him, may be left to those who delight in metaphysical disquisitions.
The world might reasonably have expected, from the circumstances connected with the first
settlement of the American colonies, which was in consequence of their attachment to the religion of
their fathers, united with a spirit of independence relative to civil government, that there would have
been no observable dereliction of those honorable principles, for many ages to come. From the
sobriety of their manners, their simple habits, their attention to the education and moral conduct of
their children, they had the highest reason to hope, that it might have been long, very long, before the
faith of their religion was shaken, or their principles corrupted, either by the manners, opinions, or
habits of foreigners, bred in the courts of despotism, or the schools of licentiousness.
This hope shall not yet be relinquished. There has indeed been some relaxation of manners, and the
appearance of a change in public opinion not contemplated when revolutionary scenes first shook the
western world. But it must be acknowledged, that the religious and moral character of Americans yet
stands on a higher grade of excellence and purity, than that of most other nations. It has been
observed, that “a violation of manners has destroyed more states than the infraction of laws.” It is
necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavour to stop the dissemination of
principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue
of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from
the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government.
Let not the frivolity of the domestic taste of the children of Columbia, nor the examples of strangers
of high or low degree, that may intermix among them, or the imposing attitude of distant nations, or
the machinations of the bloody tyrants of Europe, who have united themselves, and to the utmost are
exerting their strength to extirpate the very name of republicanism, rob them of their character, their
morals, their religion, or their liberty. . . .
It is to be regretted that Americans are so much divided on this point as well as on many other
questions: we hope the spirit of division will never be wrought up to such a height as to terminate in
a disseveration of the states, or any internal hostilities. Any civil convulsions would shake the fabric
of government, and perhaps entirely subvert the present excellent constitution; a strict adherence to
which, it may be affirmed, is the best security of the rights and liberties of a country that has bled at
every vein, to purchase and transmit them to posterity. The sword now resheathed, the army
dismissed, a wise, energetic government established and organized, it is to be hoped many
generations will pass away in the lapse of time, before America again becomes a theatre of war.
Indeed the United States of America embrace too large a portion of the globe, to expect their isolated
situation will forever secure them from the encroachments of foreign nations, and the attempts of
potent Europeans to interrupt their peace. But if the education of youth, both public and private, is
attended to, their industrious and economical habits maintained, their moral character and that
assemblage of virtues supported, which is necessary for the happiness of individuals and of nations,
there is not much danger that they will for a long time be subjugated by the arms of foreigners, or
that their republican system will be subverted by the arts of domestic enemies. Yet, probably some
distant day will exhibit the extensive continent of America, a portrait analogous to the other quarters
of the globe, which have been laid waste by ambition, until misery has spread her sable veil over the
inhabitants. But this will not be done, until ignorance, servility and vice, have led them to renounce
their ideas of freedom, and reduced them to that grade of baseness which renders them unfit for the
enjoyment of that rational liberty which is the natural inheritance of man. The expense of blood and
treasure, lavished for the purchase of freedom, should teach Americans to estimate its real worth, nor
ever suffer it to be depreciated by the vices of the human mind, which are seldom single. The sons of
America ought ever to bear in grateful remembrance the worthy band of patriots, who first supported
an opposition to the tyrannic measures of Great Britain. Though some of them have long since been
consigned to the tomb, a tribute of gratitude is ever due to their memory, while the advantages of
freedom and independence are felt by their latest posterity.
Questions
1. What does Warren consider the greatest threats to freedom?
2. What does she consider the most significant legacy of the American Revolution?
CHAPTER 9
The Market Revolution, 1800–1840
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
54. Sarah Bagley, Freedom and Necessity at Lowell (1845) 162
55. Joseph Smith, The Wentworth Letter (1842)
56. Margaret McCarthy to Her Family in Ireland (1850)
57. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” (1837)
58. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
59. Charles G. Finney, “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts” (1836)
54. Sarah Bagley, Freedom and Necessity
at Lowell (1845)
Source: Voice of Industry, September 18, 1845.
The early industrial revolution centered on factories producing cotton textiles with water-powered
spinning and weaving machinery. In the 1820s, a group of merchants created an entirely new factory
town near Boston, incorporated as the city of Lowell in 1836. Here they built a group of modern
textile factories that brought together all phases of production from the spinning of thread to the
weaving and finishing of cloth. By 1850, Lowell’s fifty-two mills employed more than 10,000
workers.
Closely supervised work tending a machine seemed to violate the independence Americans
considered an essential element of freedom. As a result, few native-born men could be attracted to
work in the early factories. At Lowell, young unmarried women from Yankee farm families
dominated the workforce that tended spinning machines. The women typically remained in the
factories for only a few years, after which they returned home, married, or moved west.
Born to a New Hampshire farm family in 1806, Sarah Bagley came to Lowell in 1837 after her father
suffered financial reverses. She soon became one of the most outspoken leaders of the labor
movement among the city’s “mill girls.” In 1845 she became the editor of the Voice of Industry,
which spoke for the male and female labor movement of New England. Her critique of the northern
labor system was similar to arguments advanced by proslavery thinkers such as George Fitzhugh (see
his document in Chapter 11).
WHENEVER I RAISE the point that it is immoral to shut us up in a close room twelve hours a day in the
most monotonous and tedious of employment, I am told that we have come to the mills voluntarily
and we can leave when we will. Voluntary! Let us look a little at this remarkable form of human
freedom. Do we from mere choice leave our fathers’ dwellings, the firesides where all of our friends,
where too our earliest and fondest recollections cluster, for the factory and the corporation’s boarding
house? . . . A slave too goes voluntarily to his task, but his will is in some manner quickened by the
whip of the overseer.
The whip which brings us to Lowell is NECESSITY. We must have money; a father’s debts are to be
paid, an aged mother to be supported, a brother’s ambition to be aided, and so the factories are
supplied. Is this to act from free will? . . . Is any one such a fool as to suppose that out of six
thousand factory girls of Lowell, sixty would be there if they could help it? Everybody knows that it
is necessity alone, in some form or other, that takes us to Lowell and keeps us there. Is this freedom?
To my mind it is slavery quite as really as any in Turkey or Carolina. It matters little as to the fact of
slavery, whether the slave be compelled to his task by the whip of the overseer or the wages of the
Lowell Corporation. In either case it is not free will, leading the laborer to work, but an outward
necessity that puts free will out of the question. . . .
We are engaged in a movement, the aim of which is the elevation of the whole human race into a
social condition of complete and universal justice. While thus seeking the good of all men, of all
orders and conditions, we cannot be blind to the fact that the laboring classes are everywhere greater
sufferers than any others. In barbarian society, the slaves of arbitrary power and of brute force. In
Civilized society, the slaves of money and their physical necessities, they are universally oppressed,
degraded, and regarded as an inferior order of beings. But they are beginning to understand that they
have all the attributes of men, and will soon demand their rights.
Questions
1. Why does Bagley compare the situation of female factory workers with slavery?
2. Why does she question the idea that the “mill girls” have freely chosen factory work?
55. Joseph Smith, The Wentworth Letter
(1842)
Source: Times and Seasons (March–May 1842).
Among the most successful of the religions that sprang up in pre–Civil War America was the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons. The Mormons were founded in the 1820s by
Joseph Smith, a farmer in upstate New York who as a youth began to experience religious visions.
He claimed to have been led by an angel to a set of golden plates covered with strange writing. Smith
translated and published them as The Book of Mormon, after a fourth-century prophet. In 1842, at the
request of John Wentworth, a Chicago editor, Smith wrote an account of his life to that point and his
religious beliefs, which Wentworth republished in a magazine Smith edited. Not long afterward,
Smith was arrested in Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Mormons had settled after being driven out of New
York, Ohio, and Missouri because of popular outrage at Smith’s insistence that The Book of Mormon
was as much the word of God as the Bible, and his doctrine of polygamy (that one man may have
several wives). While in jail, Smith was murdered by a group of intruders. In 1847, his successor as
Mormon leader, Brigham Young, led more than 2,000 followers across the Great Plains and Rocky
Mountains to the shores of the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah.
MY FATHER WAS a farmer and taught me the art of husbandry. When about fourteen years of age I
began to reflect upon the importance of being prepared for a future state, and upon enquiring [of] the
plan of salvation I found that there was a great clash in religious sentiment; if I went to one society
they referred me to one plan, and another to another, each one pointing to his own particular creed as
the summum bonum of perfection: considering that all could not be right, and that God could not be
the author of so much confusion I determined to investigate the subject more fully, believing that if
God had a church it would not be split up into factions, and that if he taught one society to worship
one way, and administer in one set of ordinances, He would not teach another, principles which were
diametrically opposed. Believing the word of God I had confidence in the declaration of James; “If
any man lack wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not and it
shall be given him.” I retired to a secret place in a grove and began to call upon the Lord, while
fervently engaged in supplication my mind was taken away from the objects with which I was
surrounded, and I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision and saw two glorious personages who exactly
resembled each other in features and likeness, surrounded with a brilliant light which eclipsed the
sun at noon-day. They told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines
and that none of them was acknowledged of God as His Church and kingdom. And I was expressly
commanded to “go not after them,” at the same time receiving a promise that the fullness of the
gospel should at some future time be made known unto me. . . .
I was informed that I was chosen to be an instrument in the hands of God to bring about some of His
purposes in this glorious dispensation.
I was also informed concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country [America], and shown who
they were, and from whence they came; a brief sketch of their origin, progress, civilization, laws,
governments, of their righteousness and iniquity, and the blessings of God being finally withdrawn
from them as a people was made known unto me: I was also told where there was deposited some
plates on which were engraven an abridgment of the records of the ancient prophets that had existed
on this continent. The angel appeared to me three times the same night and unfolded the same things.
After having received many visits from the angels of God unfolding the majesty and glory of the
events that should transpire in the last days, on the morning of the 22d of September, A.D. 1827, the
angel of the Lord delivered the records into my hands.
These records were engraven on plates which had the appearance of gold, each plate was six inches
wide and eight inches long and not quite so thick as common tin. They were filled with engravings,
in Egyptian characters and bound together in a volume, as the leaves of a book with three rings
running through the whole. The volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which
was sealed. The characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved. The whole
book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction and much skill in the art of engraving.
With the records was found a curious instrument which the ancients called “Urim and Thummim,”
which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate. . . .
As soon as the news of this discovery was made known, false reports, misrepresentation, and slander
flew as on the wings of the wind in every direction, the house was frequently beset by mobs, and evil
designing people, several times I was shot at, and very narrowly escaped, and every device was made
use of to get the plates away from me, but the power and blessing of God attended me, and several
began to believe my testimony. . . .
In the situation before alluded to we arrived in the state of Illinois in 1839, where we found a
hospitable people and a friendly home; a people who were willing to be governed by the principles of
law and humanity. We have commenced to build a city called “Nauvoo” in Hancock co., we number
from six to eight thousand here besides vast numbers in the county around and in almost every
county of the state. We have a city charter granted us and a charter for a legion the troops of which
now number 1500. We have also a charter for a university, for an agricultural and manufacturing
society, have our own laws and administrators, and possess all the privileges that other free and
enlightened citizens enjoy.
Persecution has not stopped the progress of truth, but has only added fuel to the flame, it has spread
with increasing rapidity, proud of the cause which they have espoused and conscious of our
innocence and of the truth of their system amidst calumny and reproach have the elders of this
Church gone forth, and planted the gospel in almost every state in the Union; it has penetrated our
cities, it has spread over our villages and has caused thousands of our intelligent, noble, and patriotic
citizens to obey its divine mandates, and be governed by its sacred truths. It has also spread into
England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales: in the year 1839 where a few of our missionaries were sent
over five thousand joined the standard of truth, there are numbers now joining in every land.
Questions
1. What does the Mormon experience suggest about the extent and limits of religious freedom in
the pre–Civil War United States?
2. What in Smith’s letter might offend non-Mormon Americans?
56. Margaret McCarthy to Her Family in
Ireland (1850)
Source: Margaret McCarthy, from “State-Aided Emigration Schemes from Crown Estates in
Ireland c. 1850” by Eilish Ellis. Analecta Hibernica 22 (1960), pp. 390–93. Reprinted by
permission of the estate of Eilish Ellis.
America’s economic expansion fueled a demand for labor that was met, in part, by increased
immigration from abroad. Between 1840 and 1860, over 4 million people (more than the entire
population of 1790) entered the United States, the majority from Ireland and Germany. The Irish
were fleeing a devastating famine that killed hundreds of thousands of persons and led millions of
others to emigrate. About 90 percent of immigrants headed for the northern states, where job
opportunities were most abundant and the new arrivals would not have to compete with slave labor.
Many sent money home to help family members join them, a process today sometimes called chain
migration. In this letter, Margaret McCarthy, a young immigrant writing from New York City, offers
advice to her family in Ireland about coming to the United States.
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 22, 1850
My dear father and mother brothers and sisters.
I write these few lines to you hoping that [they] may find you all in as good state of health as I am at
present thank God. . . . My dear father I must only say that this is a good place and a good country
for if one place does not suit a man he can go to another and can very easy please himself. . . . [But] I
would advise no one to come to America that would not have some money after landing here that
[will] enable them to go west in case they would get no work to do here. But any man or woman
without a family are fools that would not venture and come to this plentiful country where no man or
woman ever hungered or ever will. . . .
Come you all together courageously and bid adieu to that lovely place the land of our birth. . . . But
alas I am now told it’s the gulf of misery, oppression, degradation and ruin of every description
which I am sorry to hear of so doleful a history to be told of our dear country. This, my dear father
induces me to remit to you in this letter 20 dollars. . . . Believe me I cannot express how great would
be my joy at seeing you all here together where you would never want or be at a loss for a good
breakfast or dinner. So prepare as soon as possible for this will be my last remittance until I see you
all here.
Dan Keliher tells me that you knew more of the house carpentry than he did himself and he can earn
from twelve to fourteen shilling a day and he also tells me that Florence will do very well and that
Michael can get a place right off. . . . It’s not for slavery I want you to come here. No its for
affording my brothers and sisters and I an opportunity of showing our kindness and gratitude and
coming on your seniour days . . . [so] that you my dear father and mother could walk about leisurely
and independently. . . .
Oh how happy I feel [that] the Lord had not it destined for me to get married . . . at home [and] after
a few months he and I may be an encumbrance on you or perhaps in the poor house. . . .
And dear father when you are coming here if you possibly can bring my uncle Con I would be glad
that you would and I am sure he would be of the greatest acquisition to you on board and also tell
Mary Keeffe that if her child died that I will pay her passage very shortly and when you are coming
do not be frightened. Take courage and be determined and bold in your undertaking as the first two
or three days will be the worst to you and mind whatever happens on board keep your temper and do
not speak angry to any.
Questions
1. What aspirations seem to be uppermost in Margaret McCarthy’s mind?
2. Why do you think McCarthy’s account of economic opportunities in the United States differs
so strongly from Sarah Bagley’s above?
57. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American
Scholar” (1837)
Source: “The American Scholar [1837],” in Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, Addresses, and
Lectures (Boston, 1892), pp. 79–80, 99–103.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was perhaps the most prominent member of a group of New England
intellectuals known as the Transcendentalists, who insisted on the primacy of individual judgment
over existing social traditions and institutions. Emerson was a proponent of “individualism,” a word
that entered the language in the 1820s. The keynote of the times, he declared, was “the new
importance given to the single person.” In a widely reprinted 1837 address, “The American Scholar,”
delivered at Harvard College, he called on Americans engaged in writing and thinking to trust their
own judgment and “never defer to the popular cry.” In Emerson’s own definition, rather than a
preexisting set of rights or privileges, freedom was an open-ended process of self-realization by
which individuals could remake themselves and their own lives. He particularly urged young
scholars to free themselves from European literary and artistic ideas and create their own intellectual
traditions based on American life.
MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN,
I greet you on the re-commencement of our literary year. Our anniversary is one of hope, and,
perhaps, not enough of labor. We do not meet for games of strength or skill, for the recitation of
histories, tragedies and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for parliaments of love and poesy, like the
Troubadours; nor for the advancement of science, like our contemporaries in the British and
European capitals. Thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of
letters amongst a people too busy to give to letters any more. As such, it is precious as the sign of an
indestructible instinct. Perhaps the time is already come, when it ought to be, and will be something
else; when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the
postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill. Our
day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The
millions that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign
harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves. Who can doubt that
poetry will revive and lead in a new age, as the star in the constellation Harp which now flames in
our zenith, astronomers announce, shall one day be the pole-star for a thousand years.
• • •
In self-trust, all the virtues are comprehended. Free should the scholar be,—free and brave. Free even
to the definition of freedom, “without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution.”
Brave; for fear is a thing which a scholar by his very function puts behind him. Fear always springs
from ignorance. It is a shame to him if his tranquility, amid dangerous times, arise from the
presumption that like children and women, his is a protected class; or if he seek a temporary peace by
the diversion of his thoughts from politics or vexed questions, hiding his head like an ostrich in the
flowering bushes, peeping into microscopes, and turning rhymes, as a boy whistles to keep his
courage up. So is the danger a danger still: so is the fear worse. Manlike let him turn and face it. Let
him look into its eye and search its nature, inspect its origin—see the whelping of this lion,—which
lies no great way back; he will then find in himself a perfect comprehension of its nature and extent;
he will have made his hands meet on the other side, and can henceforth defy it, and pass on superior.
The world is his who can see through its pretension. What deafness, what stoneblind custom, what
overgrown error you behold, is there only by sufferance,—by your sufferance. See it to be a lie, and
you have already dealt it its mortal blow.
Yes, we are the cowed,—we the trustless. It is a mischievous notion that we are come late into
nature; that the world was finished a long time ago. As the world was plastic and fluid in the hands of
God, so it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it. To ignorance and sin, it is flint. They
adapt themselves to it as they may; but in proportion as a man has anything in him divine, the
firmament flows before him, and takes his signet [seal] and form. Not he is great who can alter
matter, but he who can alter my state of mind. They are the kings of the world who give the color of
their present thought to all nature and all art, and persuade men by the cheerful serenity of their
carrying the matter, that this thing which they do, is the apple which the ages have desired to pluck,
now at last ripe, and inviting nations to the harvest. The great man makes the great thing. . . . The day
is always his, who works in it with serenity and great aims. The unstable estimates of men crowd to
him whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic follow the moon.
• • •
Another sign of our times, also marked by an analogous political movement is, the new importance
given to the single person. Every thing that tends to insulate the individual,—to surround him with
barriers of natural respect, so that each man shall feel the world is his, and man shall treat with man
as a sovereign state with a sovereign state:—tends to true union as well as greatness. “I learned,” said
the melancholy Pestalozzi, [a Swiss educator] “that no man in God’s wide earth is either willing or
able to help any other man.” Help must come from the bosom alone. The scholar is that man who
must take up into himself all the ability of the time, all the contributions of the past, all the hopes of
the future. He must be an university of knowledges. If there be one lesson more than another which
should pierce his ear, it is, The world is nothing, the man is all; in yourself is the law of all nature,
and you know not yet how a globule of sap ascends; in yourself slumbers the whole of Reason; it is
for you to know all, it is for you to dare all. Mr. President and Gentlemen, this confidence in the
unsearched might of man, belongs by all motives, by all prophecy, by all preparation, to the
American Scholar. We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe. The spirit of the
American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame. Public and private avarice make
the air we breathe thick and fat. The scholar is decent, indolent, complaisant. See already the tragic
consequence. The mind of this country taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. There is no
work for any but the decorous and the complaisant. Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life
upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth
below not in unison with these,—but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on
which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust,—some of them suicides.
What is the remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful now crowding to
the barriers for the career, do not yet see, that if the single man plant himself indomitably on his
instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him. Patience—patience;—with the
shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace, the perspective of your own infinite
life; and for work, the study and the communication of principles, the making those instincts
prevalent, the conversion of the world. It is not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be an unit;—
not to be reckoned one character;—not to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to
bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the party, the section, to
which we belong; and our opinion predicted geographically, as the north, or the south. Not so,
brothers and friends,—please God, ours shall not be so. We will walk on our own feet; we will work
with our own hands; we will speak our own minds. Then shall man be no longer a name for pity, for
doubt, and for sensual indulgence. The dread of man and the love of man shall be a wall of defence
and a wreath of love around all. A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes
himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.
Questions
1. Why does Emerson feel that American writers and artists are “cowed” and need to develop
more boldness and originality?
2. Why does Emerson describe self-reliance as a “manlike” quality?
58. Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)
Source: Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Boston, 1854), pp. 10–17.
Henry David Thoreau, Emerson’s neighbor in Concord, Massachusetts, became persuaded that
modern society stifled individual judgment by making men “tools of their tools,” trapped in
stultifying jobs by their obsession with acquiring wealth. Americans, he believed, were so
preoccupied with material things that they had no time to contemplate the beauties of nature.
To escape this fate, Thoreau retreated from 1845 to 1847 to a cabin on Walden Pond in Concord,
where he could enjoy the freedom of isolation from the misplaced values he believed ruled American
society. He subsequently wrote Walden (1854), an account of his experiences. Unlike writers who
celebrated the market revolution, Thoreau insisted that it was degrading both Americans’ values and
the natural environment. Americans, he believed, should adopt a pace of life more attuned to the
rhythms of nature. Genuine freedom, he insisted, lay not in the accumulation of material goods, but
within. One of the most influential works of American literature ever written, Walden would be
rediscovered by later generations who criticized social conformity, materialism, and the degradation
of the natural environment.
• • •
THE MASS OF men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the
bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what
are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after
work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
The greater part of what my neighbours call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of
anything, it is very likely to be my good behaviour. What demon possessed me that I behaved so
well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man—you who have lived seventy years, not
without honour of a kind—I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that. One
generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.
I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of
ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our
strength. . . . Let us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and anxiety which I have
referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that we be troubled, or at least, careful. It would be
some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outwards civilisation, if
only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them;
or even to look over the old day-books of the merchants, to see what it was that the men most
commonly bought at the stores, what they stored, that is, what are the grossest groceries. For the
improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man’s existence: as our
skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.
By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has
been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether
from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it. . . . Most of the luxuries,
and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to
the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more
simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and
Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. . . .
• • •
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to [confront] only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not
lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation,
unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so
sturdily and Spartan-like as to put rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to
drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get
the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to
know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it
appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have
somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him
forever.”
Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like
pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for
its occasion a superfluous and inevitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest
man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes,
and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not
a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million, count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your
thumb nail. . . . Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead
of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. . . .
The nation itself, with all its so called internal improvements, which, by the way, are all external and
superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and
tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a
worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for them is in a rigid economy, a
stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think
that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and
ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like
baboons or like men, is a little uncertain.
If we do not get our sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go
tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built,
how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want
railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are
that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man, an Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on
them, and they are covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They are sound sleepers,
I assure you. And every few years a new lot is laid down and run over; so that if some have the
pleasure of riding on a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon.
Why should we live with such a hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we
are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to
save nine tomorrow.
• • •
Questions
1. Thoreau’s statement, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” is one of the most
famous lines in American literature. What does he mean, and what does he think is the cause?
2. What does Thoreau mean when he writes, “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us”?
59. Charles G. Finney, “Sinners Bound to
Change Their Own Hearts” (1836)
Source: “Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts,” in Charles G. Finney, Sermons on
Important Subjects, 3rd ed. (New York, 1836), pp. 3–42.
Beginning in the early nineteenth century, a series of religious revivals, known as the Second Great
Awakening, swept over the United States. They reached a crescendo in the 1820s and early 1830s,
when the Rev. Charles Grandison Finney held months-long revival meetings in upstate New York
and New York City. His sermons warned of hell in vivid language while offering the promise of
salvation to converts who abandoned their sinful ways. He rejected the idea that man is a sinful
creature with a preordained fate, promoting instead the doctrine of free will and the possibility of
salvation. Every person, Finney insisted, was a moral free agent, that is, a person free to choose
between a Christian life and a life of sin.
The Second Great Awakening democratized American Christianity, making it a truly mass
enterprise. At the time of independence, fewer than 2,000 Christian ministers preached in the United
States. In 1845, they numbered 40,000. Americans, wrote Alexis de Tocqueville when he visited the
United States in the 1830s, “combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their
minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.”
Ezek. xviii, 31: Make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will ye die?
• • •
A CHANGE OF HEART . . . consists in changing the controlling preference of the mind in regard to the
end of pursuit. The selfish heart is a preference of self-interest to the glory of God and the interests of
his kingdom. A new heart consists in a preference of the glory of God and the interests of his
kingdom to one’s own happiness. In other words, it is a change from selfishness to benevolence,
from having a supreme regard to one’s own interest to an absorbing and controlling choice of the
happiness and glory of God and his kingdom.
It is a change in the choice of a Supreme Ruler. The conduct of impenitent sinners demonstrates that
they prefer Satan as the ruler of the world, they obey his laws, electioneer for him, and are zealous
for his interests, even to martyrdom. They carry their attachment to him and his government so far as
to sacrifice both body and soul to promote his interest and establish his dominion. A new heart is the
choice of JEHOVAH as the supreme ruler; a deep-seated and abiding preference of his laws, and
government, and character, and person, as the supreme Legislator and Governor of the universe.
Thus the world is divided into two great political parties; the difference between them is, that one
party choose Satan as the god of this world, yield obedience to his laws, and are devoted to his
interest. Selfishness is the law of Satan’s empire, and all impenitent sinners yield it a willing
obedience. The other party choose Jehovah for their governor, and consecrate themselves, with all
their interests, to his service and glory. Nor does this change imply a constitutional alteration of the
powers of body or mind, any more than a change of mind in regard to the form or administration of a
human government. . . .
God has established a government, and proposed by the exhibition of his own character, to produce
the greatest practicable amount of happiness in the universe. He has enacted laws wisely calculated
to promote this object, to which he conforms all his own conduct, and to which he requires all his
subjects perfectly and undeviatingly to conform theirs. After a season of obedience, Adam changed
his heart, and set up for himself. So with every sinner, although he does not first obey, as Adam did;
yet his wicked heart consists in setting up his own interest in opposition to the interest and
government of God. In aiming to promote his own private happiness, in a way that is opposed to the
general good. Self-gratification becomes the law to which he conforms his conduct. It is that minding
of the flesh, which is enmity against God. A change of heart, therefore, is to prefer a different end.
To prefer supremely the glory of God and the public good, to the promotion of his own interest; and
whenever this preference is changed, we see of course a corresponding change of conduct. If a man
change sides in politics, you will see him meeting with those that entertain the same views and
feelings with himself; devising plans and using his influence to elect the candidate which he has now
chosen. He has new political friends on the one side, and new political enemies on the other. So with
a sinner; if his heart is changed, you will see that Christians become his friends—Christ his
candidate. He aims at honoring him and promoting his interest in all his ways. Before, the language
of his conduct was, “Let Satan govern the world.” Now, the language of his heart and of his life is,
“Let Christ rule King of nations, as he is King of saints.” Before, his conduct said, “O Satan, let thy
kingdom come, and let thy will be done.” Now, his heart, his life, his lips cry out, “O Jesus, let thy
kingdom come, let thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” . . .
• • •
As God requires men to make to themselves a new heart, on pain of eternal death, it is the strongest
possible evidence that they are able to do it. To say that he has commanded them to do it, without
telling them they are able, is consummate trifling. Their ability is implied as strongly as it can be, in
the command itself. . . .
The strivings of the Spirit of God with men, is not a physical scuffling, but a debate; a strife not of
body with body, but of mind with mind; and that in the action and reaction of vehement
argumentation. From these remarks, it is easy to answer the question sometimes put by individuals
who seem to be entirely in the dark upon this subject, whether in converting the soul the Spirit acts
directly on the mind, or on the truth. This is the same nonsense as if you should ask, whether an
earthly advocate who had gained his cause, did it by acting directly and physically on the jury, or on
his argument. . . .
You see from this subject that a sinner, under the influence of the Spirit of God, is just as free as a
jury under the arguments of an advocate. . . .
• • •
So if a minister goes into a desk to preach to sinners, believing that they have no power to obey the
truth, and under the impression that a direct physical influence must be exerted upon them before
they can believe, and if his audience be of the same opinion, in vain does he preach, and in vain do
they hear, “for they are yet in their sins”; they sit and quietly wait for some invisible hand to be
stretched down from heaven, and perform some surgical operation, infuse some new principle, or
implant some constitutional taste; after which they suppose they shall be able to obey God. Ministers
should labor with sinners, as a lawyer does with a jury, and upon the same principles of mental
philosophy; and the sinner should weigh his arguments, and make up his mind as upon oath and for
his life, and give a verdict upon the spot, according to law and evidence. . . .
Sinner! instead of waiting and praying for God to change your heart, you should at once summon up
your powers, put forth the effort, and change the governing preference of your mind. . . .
Sinner! your obligation to love God is equal to the excellence of his character, and your guilt in not
obeying him is of course equal to your obligation. You cannot therefore for an hour or a moment
defer obedience to the commandment in the text, without deserving eternal damnation. . . .
And now, sinner; while the subject is before you, will you yield? To keep yourself away from under
the motives of the gospel, by neglecting church, and neglecting your Bible, will prove fatal to your
soul. And to be careless when you do attend, or to hear with attention and refuse to make up your
mind and yield, will be equally fatal. And now, “I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that you at
this time render your body and soul, a living sacrifice to God, which is your reasonable service.” Let
the truth take hold upon your conscience—throw down your rebellious weapons—give up your
refuges of lies—fix your mind steadfastly upon the world of considerations that should instantly
decide you to close in with the offer of reconciliation while it now lies before you. Another
moment’s delay, and it may be too late forever. The Spirit of God may depart from you—the offer of
life may be made no more, and this one more slighted offer of mercy may close up your account, and
seal you over to all the horrors of eternal death. Hear, then, O sinner, I beseech you, and obey the
word of the Lord—“Make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will ye die?”
Questions
1. What precisely does Finney mean by a “change of heart”?
2. How does the fact that he is preaching in an era of mass political democracy affect Finney’s
language?
CHAPTER 10
Democracy in America, 1815–1840
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
60. The Monroe Doctrine (1823)
61. John Quincy Adams on the Role of the National Government (1825)
62. Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Bank Bill (1832)
63. Virginia Petition for the Right to Vote (1829)
64. Appeal of the Cherokee Nation (1830)
65. Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens (1838)
60. The Monroe Doctrine (1823)
Source: James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents
(10 vols.: Washington, D.C., 1896–99), vol. 2, pp. 778, 786–88.
Between 1810 and 1822, Spain’s Latin American colonies rose in rebellion and established a series
of independent nations, including Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru. By 1825, Spain’s once
vast American empire had been reduced to the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico. The uprisings
inspired a wave of sympathy in the United States. In 1822, the Monroe administration became the
first government to extend diplomatic recognition to the new Latin American republics. The
following year, President James Monroe included in his annual message a passage, written by
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, that became known as the Monroe Doctrine. It outlined
principles that would help to govern the country’s relations with the rest of the world for nearly a
century—that the Western Hemisphere was no longer open to European colonization and that the
United States would remain uninvolved in the wars of Europe. In effect, Monroe declared the
Americas a sphere of influence of the United States.
AT THE PROPOSAL of the Russian Imperial government, made through the minister of the Emperor
residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States
at St. Petersburg to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interests of the two
nations on the northwest coast of this continent. A similar proposal has been made by His Imperial
Majesty to the government of Great Britain, which has likewise been acceded to. The government of
the United States has been desirous by this friendly proceeding of manifesting the great value which
they have invariably attached to the friendship of the Emperor and their solicitude to cultivate the
best understanding with his government.
In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may
terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and
interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent
condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for
future colonization by any European powers. . . .
It was stated at the commencement of the last session that a great effort was then making in Spain
and Portugal to improve the condition of the people of those countries, and that it appeared to be
conducted with extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely be remarked that the results have been so
far very different from what was then anticipated. Of events in that quarter of the globe, with which
we have so much intercourse and from which we derive our origin, we have always been anxious and
interested spectators. The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor
of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the
European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport
with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent
injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of
necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and
impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers [of Europe] is essentially different in
this respect from that of America. . . .
We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and
those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to
any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or
dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the
Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it, and whose independence we
have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any
interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by
any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward
the United States. . . .
It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of [North or
South America] without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our
southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible,
therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference. If we look to the
comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new governments, and their distance from
each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United
States to leave the parties to themselves, in hope that other powers will pursue the same course.
Questions
1. Why does Monroe think that the “systems” of Europe and the Western Hemisphere are
fundamentally different?
2. Why does Monroe mention Russia at the beginning of his address?
61. John Quincy Adams on the Role of the
National Government (1825)
Source: James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents
(10 vols.: Washington, D.C., 1896–99), vol. 2., pp. 878–82.
Many Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century saw a powerful federal government as a
threat to individual liberty. Others, however, believed that by promoting economic expansion and
encouraging the development of the arts and sciences, the government would enhance Americans’
freedom. Among the proponents of an activist federal government was John Quincy Adams, who
served as president from 1825 to 1829.
In his first annual message to Congress, in December 1825, he set forth a comprehensive program for
government action. He called for legislation promoting agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing,
and “the mechanical and elegant arts.” His plans included government-financed improvements in
transportation, scientific expeditions, and the establishment of a national astronomical observatory.
Adams astonished many listeners with his bold statement, “Liberty is power.” The United States, the
freest nation on earth, he predicted, would also become the mightiest.
Adams’s proposals alarmed all believers in strict construction of the Constitution. Few of his
ambitious ideas received support in Congress. Not until the twentieth century would the kind of
national economic planning and educational and scientific involvement envisioned by Adams be
realized.
IN ASSUMING HER station among the civilized nations of the earth it would seem that our country had
contracted the engagement to contribute her share of mind, of labor, and of expense to the
improvement of those parts of knowledge which lie beyond the reach of individual acquisition, and
particularly to geographical and astronomical science. Looking back to the history only of the half
century since the declaration of our independence, and observing the generous emulation with which
the Governments of France, Great Britain, and Russia have devoted the genius, the intelligence, the
treasures of their respective nations to the common improvement of the species in these branches of
science, is it not incumbent upon us to inquire whether we are not bound by obligations of a high and
honorable character to contribute our portion of energy and exertion to the common stock? The
voyages of discovery prosecuted in the course of that time at the expense of those nations have not
only redounded to their glory, but to the improvement of human knowledge. We have been partakers
of that improvement and owe for it a sacred debt, not only of gratitude, but of equal or proportional
exertion in the same common cause. Of the cost of these undertakings, if the mere expenditures of
outfit, equipment, and completion of the expeditions were to be considered the only charges, it would
be unworthy of a great and generous nation to take a second thought. One hundred expeditions of
circumnavigation . . . would not burden the exchequer of the nation fitting them out so much as the
ways and means of defraying a single campaign in war. But if we take into the account the lives of
those benefactors of mankind of which their services in the cause of their species were the purchase,
how shall the cost of those heroic enterprises be estimated, and what compensation can be made to
them or to their countries for them? Is it not by bearing them in affectionate remembrance? Is it not
still more by imitating their example by enabling countrymen of our own to pursue the same career
and to hazard their lives in the same cause?
• • •
In inviting the attention of Congress to the subject of internal improvements upon a view thus
enlarged it is not my design to recommend the equipment of an expedition for circumnavigating the
globe for purposes of scientific research and inquiry. We have objects of useful investigation nearer
home, and to which our cares may be more beneficially applied. The interior of our own territories
has yet been very imperfectly explored. Our coasts along many degrees of latitude upon the shores of
the Pacific Ocean, though much frequented by our spirited commercial navigators, have been barely
visited by our public ships. The River of the West, first fully discovered and navigated by a
countryman of our own, still bears the name of the ship in which he ascended its waters, and claims
the protection of our armed national flag at its mouth. With the establishment of a military post there
or at some other point of that coast, recommended by my predecessor and already matured in the
deliberations of the last Congress, I would suggest the expediency of connecting the equipment of a
public ship for the exploration of the whole northwest coast of this continent. . . .
• • •
Connected with the establishment of an university, or separate from it, might be undertaken the
erection of an astronomical observatory, with provision for the support of an astronomer, to be in
constant attendance of observation upon the phenomena of the heavens, and for the periodical
publication of his observations. It is with no feeling of pride as an American that the remark may be
made that on the comparatively small territorial surface of Europe there are existing upward of 130
of these light-houses of the skies, while throughout the whole American hemisphere there is not one.
If we reflect a moment upon the discoveries which in the last four centuries have been made in the
physical constitution of the universe by the means of these buildings and of observers stationed in
them, shall we doubt of their usefulness to every nation? And while scarcely a year passes over our
heads without bringing some new astronomical discovery to light, which we must fain receive at
second hand from Europe, are we not cutting ourselves off from the means of returning light for light
while we have neither observatory nor observer upon our half of the globe and the earth revolves in
perpetual darkness to our unsearching eyes?
The Constitution under which you are assembled is a charter of limited powers. After full and solemn
deliberation upon all or any of the objects which, urged by an irresistible sense of my own duty, I
have recommended to your attention should you come to the conclusion that, however desirable in
themselves, the enactment of laws for effecting them would transcend the powers committed to you
by that venerable instrument which we are all bound to support, let no consideration induce you to
assume the exercise of powers not granted to you by the people. But if the power to exercise
exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over the District of Columbia; if the power to lay and
collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and
general welfare of the United States; if the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and
among the several States and with the Indian tribes, to fix the standard of weights and measures, to
establish post-offices and post-roads, to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and
maintain a navy, to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or
other property belonging to the United States, and to make all laws which shall be necessary and
proper for carrying these powers into execution—if these powers and others enumerated in the
Constitution may be effectually brought into action by laws promoting the improvement of
agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic and of
the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental and
profound, to refrain from exercising them for the benefit of the people themselves would be to hide
in the earth the talent committed to our charge—would be treachery to the most sacred of trusts.
The spirit of improvement is abroad upon the earth. It stimulates the hearts and sharpens the faculties
not of our fellow-citizens alone, but of the nations of Europe and of their rulers. While dwelling with
pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful
that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to
its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the
moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to
improve the condition of himself and his fellowmen. While foreign nations less blessed with that
freedom which is power than ourselves are advancing with gigantic strides in the career of public
improvement, were we to slumber in indolence or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world that we
are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence
and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority? In the course of the year now drawing to its close we
have beheld, under the auspices and at the expense of one State of this Union, a new university
unfolding its portals to the sons of science and holding up the torch of human improvement to eyes
that seek the light. We have seen under the persevering and enlightened enterprise of another State
the waters of our Western lakes mingle with those of the ocean. If undertakings like these have been
accomplished in the compass of a few years by the authority of single members of our
Confederation, can we, the representative authorities of the whole Union, fall behind our fellowservants in the exercise of the trust committed to us for the benefit of our common sovereign by the
accomplishment of works important to the whole and to which neither the authority nor the resources
of any one State can be adequate?
Questions
1. Why does President Adams believe that the federal government should promote the sciences
and arts?
2. What does he mean by the remark “Liberty is power”?
62. Andrew Jackson, Veto of the Bank Bill
(1832)
Source: James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents
(Washington, D.C., 1896–99), vol. 3, pp. 1139–54.
The central political struggle of the Age of Jackson was the president’s war on the Bank of the
United States. Many Americans, including Jackson, distrusted bankers as “non-producers” who
contributed nothing to the nation’s wealth but profited from the labor of others. They especially
resented the economic power concentrated in the hands of the Second Bank of the United States, a
private corporation that conducted the federal government’s financial business and regulated
currency issued by state banks. The Bank had been given a twenty-year charter by Congress in 1816.
Many Democrats, suspicious of concentrated political and economic power, called it the Monster
Bank, an illegitimate union of political authority and entrenched economic privilege.
The issue of the Bank’s future came to a head in 1832, when the institution’s allies persuaded
Congress to approve a bill extending it for another twenty years. Jackson vetoed the bill. His veto
message is perhaps the central document of what would come to be called “Jacksonian democracy.”
The proper role of government, Jackson insisted, was to offer “equal protection” to all citizens. In a
democracy, it was unacceptable for Congress to create a source of economic power and privilege
unaccountable to the people. Jackson presented himself to “humble” Americans as their defender.
His effective appeal to popular sentiments helped him win reelection in 1832, ensuring the death of
the Bank of the United States.
THE BILL “TO modify and continue” the act entitled “An act to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank
of the United States” . . . ought not to become a law. The powers and privileges possessed by the
existing bank are unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive of the rights of the States, and
dangerous to the liberties of the people. . . . The present corporate body, denominated the president,
directors, and company of the Bank of the United States, . . . enjoys an exclusive privilege of banking
under the authority of the General Government, a monopoly of its favor and support, and, as a
necessary consequence, almost a monopoly of the foreign and domestic exchange. The powers,
privileges, and favors bestowed upon it in the original charter, by increasing the value of the stock far
above its par value, operated as a gratuity of many millions to the stockholders. . . .
Every monopoly and all exclusive privileges are granted at the expense of the public, which ought to
receive a fair equivalent. The many millions which this act proposes to bestow on the stockholders of
the existing bank must come directly or indirectly out of the earnings of the American people. . . . It
is not conceivable how the present stockholders can have any claim to the special favor of the
Government. . . . Should [the Bank’s] influence become concentered, as it may under the operation
of such an act as this, in the hands of a self-elected directory . . . will there not be cause to tremble for
the purity of our elections? . . .
It is maintained by the advocates of the bank that its constitutionality in all its features ought to be
considered as settled by precedent and by the decision of the Supreme Court. To this conclusion I
can not assent. . . . The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its
own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution
swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. . . . The
opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the
judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. . . .
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish
purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents,
of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the
gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled
to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages
artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and
the potent more powerful, the humble members of society—the farmers, mechanics, and laborers—
who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to
complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils
exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains,
shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified
blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just
principles.
Nor is our Government to be maintained or our Union preserved by invasions of the rights and
powers of the several States. In thus attempting to make our General Government strong we make it
weak. Its true strength consists in leaving individuals and States as much as possible to themselves—
in making itself felt, not in its power, but in its beneficence; not in its control, but in its protection;
not in binding the States more closely to the center, but leaving each to move unobstructed in its
proper orbit.
Experience should teach us wisdom. Most of the difficulties our Government now encounters . . .
have sprung from an abandonment of the legitimate objects of Government. . . . Many of our rich
men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make
them richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires we have . . . arrayed section
against section, interest against interest, and man against man. We [must] at least take a stand against
all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to
the advancement of the few at the expense of the many.
Questions
1. Why does Jackson distinguish between just and unjust “distinctions in society”?
2. What does Jackson see as the legitimate scope of governmental action?
63. Virginia Petition for the Right to Vote
(1829)
Source: Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia State Convention of 1829–1830 (Richmond,
1830), pp. 25–31.
The challenge to property qualifications for voting, which began during the American Revolution,
reached its culmination in the first part of the nineteenth century. No state that entered the Union
after the original thirteen required ownership of property to vote. In the older states, constitutional
conventions during the 1820s and 1830s debated once again who should be able to participate in
American democracy.
By the 1820s, only North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia still retained property qualifications
for voting. One of the first actions of Virginia’s constitutional convention of 1829–1830 was to
consider a memorial from “non-freeholders” of Richmond—men who did not possess enough land to
enable them to vote. Those who owned property, declared their statement, did not necessarily possess
“moral or intellectual endowments” superior to those of the poor. “They alone deserve to be called
free,” they added, “who participate in the formation of their political institutions.” The large
slaveholders who dominated Virginia politics successfully resisted demands for changes in voting
qualifications in 1829, but a subsequent constitutional convention, in 1850, eliminated the property
requirement.
YOUR MEMORIALISTS, AS their designation imports, belong to that class of citizens, who, not having
the good fortune to possess a certain portion of land, are, for that cause only, debarred from the
enjoyment of the right of suffrage. Experience has but too clearly evinced, what, indeed, reason had
always foretold, by how frail a tenure they hold every other right, who are denied this, the highest
prerogative of freemen. The want of it has afforded both the pretext and the means of excluding the
entire class, to which your memorialists belong, from all participation in the recent election of the
body, they now respectfully address. Comprising a very large part, probably a majority of male
citizens of mature age, they have been passed by, like aliens or slaves, as if destitute of interest, or
unworthy of a voice, in measures involving their future political destiny: whilst the freeholders, sole
possessors, under the existing Constitution, of the elective franchise, have, upon the strength of that
possession alone, asserted and maintained in themselves, the exclusive power of new-modelling the
fundamental laws of the State: in other words, have seized upon the sovereign authority.
It cannot be necessary, in addressing the Convention now assembled, to expatiate on the momentous
importance of the right of suffrage, or to enumerate the evils consequent upon its unjust limitation.
Were there no other than that your memorialists have brought to your attention, and which has made
them feel with full force their degraded condition, well might it justify their best efforts to obtain the
great privilege they now seek, as the only effectual method of preventing its recurrence. To that
privilege, they respectfully contend, they are entitled equally with its present possessors. Many are
bold enough to deny their title. None can show a better. It rests upon no subtle or abstruse reasoning;
but upon grounds simple in their character, intelligible to the plainest capacity, and such as appeal to
the heart, as well as the understanding, of all who comprehend and duly appreciate the principles of
free Government. . . .
How do the principles thus proclaimed, accord with the existing regulation of suffrage? A regulation,
which, instead of the equality nature ordains, creates an odious distinction between members of the
same community; robs of all share, in the enactment of the laws, a large portion of the citizens,
bound by them, and whose blood and treasure are pledged to maintain them, and vests in a favoured
class, not in consideration of their public services, but of their private possessions, the highest of all
privileges. . . .
Surely it were much to be desired that, every citizen should be qualified for the proper exercise of all
his rights, and the due performance of all his duties. But the same qualifications that entitle him to
assume the management of his private affairs, and to claim all other privileges of citizenship, equally
entitle him, in the judgment of your memorialists, to be entrusted with this, the dearest of all his
privileges, the most important of all his concerns. But if otherwise, still they cannot discern in the
possession of land any evidence of peculiar merit, or superior title. To ascribe to a landed possession,
moral or intellectual endowments, would truly be regarded as ludicrous, were it not for the gravity
with which the proposition is maintained, and still more for the grave consequences flowing from it.
Such possession no more proves him who has it, wiser or better, than it proves him taller or stronger,
than him who has it not. That cannot be a fit criterion for the exercise of any right, the possession of
which does not indicate the existence, nor the want of it the absence, of any essential
qualification. . . .
Your memorialists do not design to institute a comparison; they fear none that can be fairly made
between the privileged and the proscribed classes. They may be permitted, however, without
disrespect, to remark, that of the latter, not a few possess land: many, though not proprietors, are yet
cultivators of the soil: others are engaged in avocations of a different nature, often as useful,
presupposing no less integrity, requiring as much intelligence, and as fixed a residence, as
agricultural pursuits. Virtue, intelligence, are not among the products of the soil. Attachment to
property, often a sordid sentiment, is not to be confounded with the sacred flame of patriotism. The
love of country, like that of parents and offspring, is engrafted in our nature. It exists in all climates,
among all classes, under every possible form of Government. Riches oftener impair it than poverty.
Who has it not is a monster. . . .
Let us concede that the right of suffrage is a social right; that it must of necessity be regulated by
society. Still the question recurs, is the existing limitation proper? For obvious reasons, by almost
universal consent, women and children, aliens and slaves, are excluded. It were useless to discuss the
propriety of a rule that scarcely admits of diversity of opinion. What is concurred in by those who
constitute the society, the body politic, must be taken to be right. But the exclusion of these classes
for reasons peculiarly applicable to them, is no argument for excluding others to whom no one of
those reasons applies.
It is said to be expedient, however, to exclude non-freeholders also. Who shall judge of this
expediency? The society: and does that embrace the proprietors of certain portions of land only?
Expedient, for whom? for the freeholders. A harsh appellation would he deserve, who, on the plea of
expediency, should take from another his property: what, then, should be said of him who, on that
plea, takes from another his rights, upon which the security, not of his property only, but of his life
and liberty depends? . . .
They alone deserve to be called free, or have a guarantee for their rights, who participate in the
formation of their political institutions, and in the control of those who make and administer the
laws.
Questions
1. What “obvious reasons” exclude women, children, noncitizens, and slaves from the right to
vote, and why do the non-freeholders not question them?
2. How do the writers define political freedom?
64. Appeal of the Cherokee Nation (1830)
Source: E. C. Tracy, Memoir of the Life of Jeremiah Evarts (Boston, 1845), pp. 149–58.
One of the early laws of Andrew Jackson’s administration, the Indian Removal Act of 1830,
provided for uprooting the Cherokee and four other tribes, with a total population of around 60,000
living in the Southeast. The Cherokee had made great efforts to become citizens, establishing
schools, adopting a constitution modeled on that of the United States, and becoming successful
farmers, many of whom owned slaves. But in his messages to Congress, Jackson referred to them as
“savages” and supported Georgia’s effort to seize Cherokee land and nullify the tribe’s laws.
Cherokee leaders petitioned Congress, proclaiming their desire to “remain on the land of our
fathers,” as guaranteed in treaties with the federal government. They also went to court to protect
their rights. Chief Justice John Marshall held that Georgia’s action in extending its jurisdiction over
the Cherokee violated the tribe’s treaties with Washington. But presidents Jackson and Van Buren
refused to recognize the ruling’s validity. Eventually, nearly all the Cherokee, along with the other
“civilized tribes,” were forced to leave their homes. More than 4,000 Indians perished during the
winter of 1838–1839 on the Trail of Tears, as the removal route to present-day Oklahoma came to be
called.
WE ARE AWARE that some persons suppose it will be for our advantage to remove beyond the
Mississippi. We think otherwise. Our people universally think otherwise. Thinking that it would be
fatal to their interests, they have almost to a man sent their memorial to Congress, deprecating the
necessity of a removal. This question was distinctly before their minds when they signed their
memorial. Not an adult person can be found, who has not an opinion on the subject; and if the people
were to understand distinctly, that they could be protected against the laws of the neighboring States,
there is probably not an adult person in the nation, who would think it best to remove; though
possibly a few might emigrate individually. There are doubtless many who would flee to an
unknown country, however beset with dangers, privations and sufferings, rather than be sentenced to
spend six years in a Georgia prison for advising one of their neighbors not to betray his country. And
there are others who could not think of living as outlaws in their native land, exposed to numberless
vexations, and excluded from being parties or witnesses in a court of justice. It is incredible that
Georgia should ever have enacted the oppressive laws to which reference is here made, unless she
had supposed that something extremely terrific in its character was necessary, in order to make the
Cherokees willing to remove. We are not willing to remove; and if we could be brought to this
extremity, it would be, not by argument; not because our judgment was satisfied; not because our
condition will be improved—but only because we cannot endure to be deprived of our national and
individual rights, and subjected to a process of intolerable oppression.
We wish to remain on the land of our fathers. We have a perfect and original right to claim this,
without interruption or molestation. The treaties with us, and laws of the United States made in
pursuance of treaties, guaranty our residence, and our privileges, and secure us against intruders. Our
only request is, that these treaties may be fulfilled, and these laws executed.
But if we are compelled to leave our country, we see nothing but ruin before us. The country west of
the Arkansas territory is unknown to us. From what we can learn of it, we have no prepossessions in
its favor. All the inviting parts of it, as we believe, are preoccupied by various Indian nations, to
which it has been assigned. They would regard us as intruders, and look upon us with an evil eye.
The far greater part of that region is, beyond all controversy, badly supplied with wood and water;
and no Indian tribe can live as agriculturists without these articles. All our neighbors, in case of our
removal, though crowded into our near vicinity, would speak a language totally different from ours,
and practice different customs. The original possessors of that region are now wandering savages,
lurking for prey in the neighborhood. They have always been at war, and would be easily tempted to
turn their arms against peaceful emigrants. Were the country to which we are urged much better than
it is represented to be, and were it free from the objections which we have made to it, still it is not the
land of our birth, nor of our affections. It contains neither the scenes of our childhood, nor the graves
of our fathers.
Questions
1. What reasons do the Cherokee give for rejecting the idea of moving beyond the Mississippi
River?
2. How do the Cherokee understand their “national and individual rights”?
65. Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens
(1838)
Source: Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens Threatened with Disfranchisement, to the People of
Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1838), pp. 3–11.
The expansion of political democracy for white men went hand in hand with the elimination of
democratic participation for blacks. Every state that entered the Union between 1800 and 1860, with
the single exception of Maine, limited the right to vote to whites. And several states that had allowed
black men to vote, including Connecticut, New York, and Tennessee, either eliminated the right
entirely or added such high property qualifications that few could qualify. In 1837, a constitutional
convention in Pennsylvania, home to the largest free black community in the North, stripped blacks
of the right to vote. (Thaddeus Stevens, later a leading advocate of emancipation and black suffrage
in Congress, refused to sign the document because of this provision.) In response, a large gathering
in Philadelphia issued a protest to “fellow citizens” of Pennsylvania.
FELLOW CITIZENS:—We appeal to you from the decision of the “Reform Convention,” which has
stripped us of a right peaceably enjoyed during forty-seven years under the Constitution of this
commonwealth. We honor Pennsylvania and her noble institutions too much to part with our
birthright as her free citizens without a struggle. To all her citizens the right of suffrage is valuable in
proportion as she is free; but surely there are none who can so ill afford to spare it as ourselves.
Was it the intention of the people of this commonwealth that the convention to which the
Constitution was committed for revision and amendment, should tear up and cast away its first
principles? Was it made the business of the Convention to deny “that all men are born equally free,”
by making political rights depend upon the skin in which a man is born? Or to divide what our
fathers bled to unite, to wit, TAXATION and REPRESENTATION? We will not allow ourselves for
one moment to suppose, that the majority of the people of Pennsylvania are not too respectful of the
rights and too liberal towards the feelings of others as well as too much enlightened to their own
interests, to deprive of the right of suffrage a single individual who may safely be trusted with it. And
we cannot believe that you have found among those who bear the burdens of taxation any who have
proved, by their abuse of the right, that it is not safe in their hands. This is a question, fellow-citizens,
in which we plead your cause as well as our own. It is the safeguard of the strongest that he lives
under a government which is obliged to respect the voice of the weakest. When you have taken from
an individual his right to vote, you have made the government, in regard to him, a mere despotism;
and you have taken a step towards making it a despotism to all.—To your women and children, their
inability to vote at the polls may be no evil, because they are united by the consanguinity and
affection with those who can do it. To foreigners and paupers the want of the right may be tolerable
because a little time or labor will make it theirs. They are candidates for the privilege, and hence
substantially enjoy its benefits. But when a distinct class of the community, already sufficiently the
objects of prejudice, are wholly, and for ever, disfranchised and excluded, to the remotest posterity,
from the possibility of a voice in regard to the laws under which they are to live—it is the same thing
as if their abode were transferred to the dominions of the Russian Autocrat, or of the Grand Turk.
They have lost their check upon oppression, their wherewith to but friends, their panoply of
manhood; in short, they are thrown upon the mercy of a despotic majority. Like every other despot,
this despot majority, will believe in the mildness of its own sway; but who will the more willingly
submit to it for that? . . .
By the careful inquiry of a committee appointed by the “Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the
Abolition of Slavery,” it has been ascertained that the colored population of Philadelphia and its
suburbs, numbering 18,768 souls, possess at the present time, of real and personal estate, not less
than $1,350,000. They have paid for taxes during the last year $3,232.83, for house, water, and
ground rent, $166,963.50. This committee estimate the income of the holders of real estate occupied
by the colored people, to be 71/2 per cent on a capital of about $2,000,000. Here is an addition to the
wealth of their white brethren. But the rents and taxes are not all; to pay them, the colored people
must be employed in labor, and here is another profit to the whites, for no man employs another
unless he can make his labor profitable to himself. For a similar reason, a profit is made by all the
whites who sell to colored people the necessaries or luxuries of life. Though the aggregate amount of
the wealth derived by the whites from our people can only be conjectured, its importance is worthy
of consideration by those who would make it less by lessening our motive to accumulate for
ourselves. . . .
That we are not neglectful of our religious interests, nor of the education of our children, is shown by
the fact that there are among us in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, York, West Chester, and Columbia, 22
churches, 48 clergymen, 26 day schools, 20 Sabbath schools, 125 Sabbath school teachers, 4 literary
societies, 2 public libraries, consisting of about 800 volumes, besides 8,333 volumes in private
libraries, 2 tract societies, 2 Bible societies, and 7 temperance societies.
In other parts of the State we are confident our condition will compare very favorably with that in
Philadelphia, although we are not furnished with accurate statistics.
Our fathers shared with yours the trials and perils of the wilderness. Among the facts which illustrate
this, it is well known that the founder of your capital, from whom it bears the name of Harrisburg,
was rescued by a colored man, from a party of Indians, who had captured, and bound him to the
stake for execution. In gratitude for this act, he invited colored persons to settle in his town, and
offered them land on favorable terms. When our common country has been invaded by a foreign foe,
colored men have hazarded their lives in its defence. Our fathers fought by the side of yours in the
struggle which made us an independent republic.
Questions
1. What evidence do the free blacks present to establish that they are worthy of the right to vote?
2. How do the protesters link their claims to the legacy of the American Revolution?
CHAPTER 11
The Peculiar Institution
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
66. Frederick Douglass on the Desire for Freedom (1845)
67. The Proslavery Argument (1854)
68. William Sewall, The Results of British Emancipation (1860)
69. Rules of Highland Plantation (1838)
70. Slavery and the Bible (1850)
71. Letter by a Fugitive Slave (1840)
72. Solomon Northup, The New Orleans Slave Market (1853)
66. Frederick Douglass on the Desire for
Freedom (1845)
Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Boston, 1845), pp. 39–
43.
No American of the nineteenth century spoke more eloquently or effectively against slavery and
racial inequality than Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery in 1818, he became a major figure in the
crusade for abolition, the drama of emancipation, and the effort during Reconstruction to give
meaning to black freedom. He was also active in other reform movements, such as the campaign for
women’s rights.
Douglass experienced slavery in all its variety, from work as a house servant and as a skilled
craftsman in a Baltimore shipyard to labor as a plantation field hand. In 1838, having borrowed the
free papers of a black sailor, he escaped to the North. He went on to become perhaps the era’s most
prominent antislavery orator and editor, and wrote three versions of his autobiography. The first,
which appeared in 1845, offered an eloquent, brief account of his experiences in slavery and his
escape.
I WAS NOW about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily
upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a book entitled “The Columbian Orator.” Every
opportunity I got, I used to read this book. Among much of other interesting matter, I found in it a
dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave was represented as having run away from his
master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them, when
the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery was
brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. The slave was made to say
some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master—things which had the desired
though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on
the part of the master.
In the same book, I met with one of [British politician Richard B.] Sheridan’s mighty speeches on
and in behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read them over and
over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul, which
had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I
gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. What I
got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights.
The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought
forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even
more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and
detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had
left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us
to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and
contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would
follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish.
As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a
blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to
the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellowslaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest
reptile to my own. Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking
of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every
object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul
to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every
sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched
condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing
without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and
moved in every storm.
I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of
being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I
should have been killed. While in this state of mind, I was eager to hear any one speak of slavery. I
was a ready listener. . . .
• • •
I went one day down on the wharf of Mr. Waters; and seeing two Irishmen unloading a scow of
stone, I went, unasked, and helped them. When we had finished, one of them came to me and asked
me if I were a slave. I told him I was. He asked, “Are ye a slave for life?” I told him that I was. The
good Irishman seemed to be deeply affected by the statement. He said to the other that it was a pity
so fine a little fellow as myself should be a slave for life. He said it was a shame to hold me. They
both advised me to run away to the north; that I should find friends there, and that I should be free. I
pretended not to be interested in what they said, and treated them as if I did not understand them; for
I feared they might be treacherous. White men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and
then, to get the reward, catch them and return them to their masters. I was afraid that these seemingly
good men might use me so; but I nevertheless remembered their advice, and from that time I
resolved to run away. I looked forward to a time at which it would be safe for me to escape. I was too
young to think of doing so immediately; besides, I wished to learn how to write, as I might have
occasion to write my own pass. I consoled myself with the hope that I should one day find a good
chance. Meanwhile, I would learn to write.
Questions
1. To whom is Douglass addressing his book, and how does the intended audience affect his
argument?
2. Why does Douglass so strongly link education with freedom?
67. The Proslavery Argument (1854)
Source: George Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society (Richmond,
1854), pp. 225–55.
In the thirty years before the outbreak of the Civil War, proslavery thought came to dominate
southern public life. Racism—the belief that blacks were innately inferior to whites and unsuited for
life in any condition other than slavery—formed one pillar of the proslavery ideology. Most
slaveholders also found legitimation for slavery in biblical passages such as the injunction that
servants should obey their masters. Still other defenders of slavery insisted that the institution
guaranteed equality for whites. Some proslavery writers began to question the ideals of liberty,
equality, and democracy so widely shared elsewhere in the nation. The Virginia writer George
Fitzhugh took the argument to its most radical conclusion, explicitly repudiating Jeffersonian ideals
of liberty and equality as proper foundations for a good society. Indeed, wrote Fitzhugh, slave
owners and slaves shared a community of interest unknown in “free society.” All workers, white and
black, North and South, according to Fitzhugh, would fare better having individual owners, rather
than living as “slaves” of the economic marketplace.
TEN YEARS AGO [I] became satisfied that slavery, black or white, was right and necessary. . . . Liberty
and equality are new things under the sun. The free states of antiquity abounded with slaves. The
feudal system that supplanted Roman institutions changed the form of slavery, but brought with it
neither liberty nor equality. France and the Northern States of our Union have alone fully and fairly
tried the experiment of a social organization founded upon universal liberty and equality of
rights. . . . The experiment has already failed, if we are to form our opinions from the discontent of
the masses. . . . Liberty and equality have not conduced to enhance the comfort or the happiness of
the people. . . . The struggle to better one’s condition, to pull others down or supplant them is the
great organic law of free society. All men being equal, all aspire to the highest honors and the largest
possessions. . . . None but the selfish virtues are encouraged, because none other aid a man in the
race of free competition. . . . The bestowing upon men of equality of rights, is but giving license to
the strong to oppress the weak. . . .
There is no rivalry, no competition to get employment among slaves, as among free laborers. Nor is
there a war between master and slave. The master’s interest prevents his reducing the slave’s
allowance or wages in infancy or sickness, for he might lose the slave by so doing. His feeling for his
slave never permits him to stint him in old age. The slaves are all well fed, well clad, have plenty of
fuel, and are happy. They have no dread of the future—no fear of want. A state of dependence is the
only condition in which reciprocal affection can exist among human beings—the only situation in
which the war of competition ceases, and peace, amity and good will arise. A state of independence
always begets more or less of jealous rivalry and hostility. A man loves his children because they are
weak, helpless and dependent; he loves his wife for similar reasons. . . .
Questions
1. What are Fitzhugh’s main criticisms of “free society”?
2. Why does he present an analogy between the condition of slaves and that of women?
68. William Sewall, The Results of British
Emancipation (1860)
Source: William G. Sewall, The Ordeal of Free Labor in the British West Indies (New York,
1861), pp. 311–17.
By 1850, slavery was on the road to abolition in most of the Western Hemisphere. The British had
abolished slavery in their Caribbean colonies in 1833, the French in 1848. The newly independent
nations of Spanish America had adopted plans for gradual emancipation. Only in the United States,
Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico did slavery survive.
Americans followed carefully the results of emancipation elsewhere in the hemisphere, and its
aftermath became part of debate over slavery. Was abolition a success or failure? Defenders of
slavery in the American South pointed to the decline in sugar production in the key British island of
Jamaica as proof that blacks would not work productively except as slaves. Abolitionists insisted that
the planters had failed to adapt to the system of free labor, and that the lives of the former slaves had
improved in numerous ways. On the eve of the Civil War, William G. Sewall published a series of
articles in the New York Times reporting on conditions in the British West Indies and defending the
abolition of slavery there. His account appeared as a book the following year.
EMANCIPATION WAS AN isolated experiment in each of the different colonies. Precedents and rules of
action for one were no precedents or rules of action for another. Here there were obstacles to
overcome and difficulties to surmount which there did not exist, or existed only in a mitigated form.
Each colony was a field of battle upon which the banners of free labor and slave labor were flung to
the winds; and while in some, where resistance was feeble, all trace of the contest has disappeared,
and prosperity has revived, in others, where resistance was strong and determined, the exhaustion
that follows a long war and a long reign of oppression weighs heavily upon a dispirited people. Let
us not be deceived. Let us not misinterpret the true meaning of Jamaica’s desolation at the present
time. Let no one be so mad as to believe that it is the work of freedom. . . . Let no one question the
victory, though its choicest fruits are yet to be reaped. Let no one doubt that freedom, when it
overturned a despotism and crushed a monopoly, unshackled, at the same time, the commerce, the
industry, and the intelligence of the islands, and laid the foundations of permanent prosperity. . . .
If free labor be tested by any other gauge than that of sugar-production, its success in the West Indies
is established beyond all cavil and beyond all peradventure. If the people merit any consideration
whatever—if their independence, their comfort, their industry, their education, form any part of a
country’s prosperity—then the West Indies are a hundred-fold more prosperous now than they were
in the most flourishing times of slavery. If peace be an element of prosperity—if it be important to
enjoy uninterrupted tranquility and be secure from servile war and insurrection—then the West
Indies have now an advantage that they never possessed before it was given them by emancipation.
If a largely-extended commerce be an indication of prosperity, then all the West Indies, Jamaica
alone excepted, have progressed under a system of free labor, although that system hitherto has been
but imperfectly developed. . . .
One of the most natural and legitimate results of emancipation was to allow every man to do what
seemed to him best—to achieve independence if he could—to pursue, in any case, the path of
industry most agreeable to his tastes, and most conducive to his happiness. When we look at the vast
political and social structure that has been demolished—the new and grander edifice that has been
erected—the enemies that have been vanquished—the prejudices that have been uprooted—the
education that has been sown broadcast, the ignorance that has been removed—the industry that has
been trained and fostered—we can not pause to criticize defects, for we are amazed at the progress of
so great a revolution within the brief space of twenty-five years. . . .
I have endeavored to show—and I hope successfully—that the experiment of free labor in the West
Indies has established its superior economy, as well as its possibility. Not a single island fails to
demonstrate that the Creoles of African descent, in all their avocations and in all their pursuits, work,
under a free system, for proper remuneration, though their labor is often ignorantly wasted and
misdirected. That arises from want of education, want of training, want of good example.
Questions
1. Why does Sewall consider emancipation in the British West Indies a success, despite the
decline in sugar production in Jamaica?
2. What lessons do you think Sewall believes Americans should learn from the experience of
British emancipation?
69. Rules of Highland Plantation (1838)
Source: Bennet H. Barrow, “Rules of Highland Plantation,” from Plantation Life in the Florida
Parishes of Louisiana, 1836–1846, as reflected in the Diary of Bennet H. Barrow, ed. Edwin
Adams David. Copyright © 1943, Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the
publisher and LSU Libraries, Baton Rouge, La.
Southern planters published numerous articles on how best to manage slave labor. Many insisted that
treating their slaves kindly would result in a more efficient workforce. A wealthy Louisiana
slaveholder, Bennet H. Barrow considered himself a model of planter paternalism who, by his own
standards, treated his slaves well. An advocate of rigorous plantation discipline, he drew up a series
of strict rules, which he recommended that other owners follow. The rules illustrated that even the
most well-intended owners claimed complete authority over the lives of their slaves. Inadvertently,
the rules also revealed planters’ fears about disobedience and resistance among their slaves.
NO NEGRO SHALL leave the place at any time without my permission. . . . No Negro shall be allowed
to marry out of the plantation.
No Negro shall be allowed to sell anything without my express permission. I have ever maintained
the doctrine that my Negroes have no time whatever, that they are always liable to my call without
questioning for a moment the propriety, of it. I adhere to this on the grounds of expediency and right.
The very security of the plantation requires that a general and uniform control over the people of it
should be exercised. Who are to protect the plantation from the intrusions of ill designed persons
when everybody is abroad? . . . To render this part of the rule justly applicable, however, it would be
necessary that such a settled arrangement should exist on the plantation to make it unnecessary for a
negro to leave it—or to have a good plea for doing so. You must therefore make him as comfortable
at home as possible, affording him what is essentially necessary for his happiness—you must provide
for him yourself and by that means create in him a habit of perfect dependence on you. Allow it once
to be understood by a Negro that he is to provide for himself, and you that moment give him an
undeniable claim on you for a portion of his time to make this provision, and should you from
necessity, or any other cause, encroach upon his time, disappointment and discontent are seriously
felt.
If I employ a laborer to perform a certain quantum of work per day and I agree to pay him a certain
amount for the performance of said work, when he has accomplished it I of course have no further
claim on him for his time or services—but how different is it with a slave. . . . If I furnish my negro
with every necessary of life, without the least care on his part—if I support him in sickness, however
long it may be, and pay all his expenses, though he does nothing—if I maintain him in his old age,
. . . am I not entitled to an exclusive right in his time?
No rule that I have stated is of more importance than that relating to Negroes marrying out of the
plantation. . . . It creates a feeling of independence, from being, of right, out of the control of the
masters for a time.
Never allow any man to talk to your Negroes, nothing more injurious.
Questions
1. Why does Barrow think that slaves have greater obligations to their owners than free laborers
do to their employers?
2. Why does Barrow think it so important to prevent “any man” from speaking with his slaves?
70. Slavery and the Bible (1850)
Source: De Bow’s Review, vol. 9 (September 1850), pp. 281–86.
White southerners developed an elaborate set of arguments defending slavery in the period before the
Civil War. They insisted that slaves were better off than free laborers in the North and that blacks
were inherently liable to lapse into “barbarism” if freed from the supervision of paternalistic whites.
One pillar of proslavery thought was the idea that the institution was sanctioned by the Bible, as in
this essay from the influential southern magazine De Bow’s Review. So common had the biblical
defense of slavery become by 1850 that the editor prefaced the essay with the following comment:
“This paper has been handed us for publication, and, as it contains a summary of the Bible argument
for slavery, we give it place, though the subject is growing hacknied [that is, so familiar as to be
lacking in any originality].” Nonetheless, De Bow decided to publish it.
A VERY LARGE PARTY in the United states believe that holding slaves is morally wrong; this party
founds its belief upon precepts taught in the Bible, and takes that book as the standard of morality
and religion. We, also, look to the same book as our guide in the same matters; yet, we think it right
to hold slaves—do hold them, and have held and used them from childhood.
As we come to such opposite conclusions from the same foundation, it may be well to consider,
whether the Bible teaches us anything whatever, in regard to slavery; if so, what is it and how is it
taught.
The anti-slavery party maintain, that the Bible teaches nothing directly upon the subject, but, that it
establishes rules and principles of action, from which they infer, that in holding slaves, we are guilty
of a moral wrong. This mode of reasoning would be perfectly fair, if the Bible really taught nothing
directly upon the subject of slavery; but when that book applies the principles it lays down to the
particular subject in controversy, we must take the application to be correct. We think we can show,
that the Bible teaches clearly and conclusively that the holding of slaves is right; and if so, no
deduction from general principles can make it wrong, if that book is true.
From the earliest period of our time down to the present moment, slavery has existed in some form or
under some name, in almost every country of the globe. It existed in every country known, even by
name, to any one of the sacred writers, at the time of his writing; yet none of them condemns it in the
slightest degree. Would this have been the case had it been wrong in itself? Would not some one of
the host of sacred writers have spoken of this alleged crime, in such terms as to show, in a manner
not to be misunderstood, that God wished all men to be equal?
Abraham, the chosen servant of God, had his bond servants, whose condition was similar to, or
worse than, that of our slaves. He considered them as his property, to be bought and sold as any other
property which he owned. In Genesis xvii, 13, 23, 27, we are told that God commanded Abraham to
circumcise all his bond-servants, “bought with his money,” and that Abraham obeyed God’s
commandment on this same day. In Genesis xx, 14, we are told that Abimelech took sheep and oxen,
and men servants and women servants, and gave them to Abraham. In chapter xii, verse 14, we are
told that Abraham possessed sheep and oxen, and he asses, and men servants and maid servants, and
she asses, and camels. Also, in Genesis xxvi, 14, Isaac is said to have had possessions of flocks and
herds, and a great store of servants. In other places in Genesis, they are spoken of, but always as
property. . . .
Paul wrote an epistle to Philemon, a Christian, a disciple of his, and a slaveholder. He sent it to him
by Onesimus, also a convert, a slave of Philemon, who was a fugitive. In it, he prays Philemon to
charge the fault of Onesimus to him, saying he would repay it, unless Philemon forgave it for his
sake.
Now, had the holding of slaves been a crime, Paul’s duty to Philemon would have required him to
instruct Philemon, that he had no rights over Onesimus, but that the attempt to hold him in servitude
was criminal; and his duty to Onesimus would have been, in such case, to send him to some foreign
free country, whereby he might have escaped from oppression. But Paul sent him back. Our northern
friends think that they manage these matters better than Paul did.
We find, then, that both the Old and New Testaments speak of slavery—that they do not condemn
the relation, but, on the contrary, expressly allow it or create it; and they give commands and
exhortations, which are based upon its legality and propriety. It can not, then, be wrong.
What we have written is founded solely upon the Bible, and can have no force, unless it is taken for
truth. If that book is of divine origin, the holding of slaves is right: as that which God has permitted,
recognized and commanded, cannot be inconsistent with his will.
Questions
1. Why do white southerners feel that it is important to show that the Bible sanctions slavery?
2. How do you think the author’s understanding of the relationship of slavery and the Bible
differs from that of the slaves, most of whom also considered themselves Christians?
71. Letter by a Fugitive Slave (1840)
Source: Joseph Taper, excerpts from “Letter from Joseph Taper to Joseph Long, November 11,
1840,” in the Joseph Long Papers located in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections
Library, Duke University. Reprinted by permission.
No one knows how many slaves succeeded in escaping from bondage before the Civil War. Some
who managed to do so settled in northern cities like Boston, Cincinnati, and New York. But because
federal law required that fugitives be returned to slavery, many continued northward until they
reached Canada.
One successful fugitive was Joseph Taper, a slave in Frederick County, Virginia, who in 1837 ran
away to Pennsylvania with his wife and children. Two years later, learning that a “slave catcher” was
in the neighborhood, the Tapers fled to Canada. In 1840, Taper wrote to a white acquaintance in
Virginia recounting some of his experiences. The biblical passage to which Taper refers reads: “And
I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against
the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the
widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the
Lord of hosts.”
DEAR SIR,
I now take the opportunity to inform you that I am in a land of liberty, in good health. . . . I have paid
50 dollars rent this year: next year I expect to build. The Queen of England has granted 50 acres of
land to every colored man who will accept of the gift, and become an actual settler. Also a yoke of
oxen and plough, for every two families. This is a very great encouragement to those who have come
here for the liberty which God had designed for them. . . .
Since I have been in the Queen’s dominions I have been well contented, Yes well contented for Sure,
man is as God intended he should be. That is, all are born free and equal. This is a wholesome law,
not like the Southern laws which puts man made in the image of God, on level with brutes. O, what
will become of the people, and where will they stand in the day of Judgment. Would that the 5th
verse of the 3d chapter of Malachi were written as with the bar of iron, and the point of a diamond
upon every oppressor’s heart that they might repent of this evil, and let the oppressed go free. . . .
We have good schools, and all the colored population supplied with schools. My boy Edward who
will be six years next January, is now reading, and I intend keeping him at school until he becomes a
good scholar.
I have enjoyed more pleasure within one month here than in all my life in the land of bondage. . . .
My wife and self are sitting by a good comfortable fire happy, knowing that there are none to molest
[us] or make [us] afraid. God save Queen Victoria. The Lord bless her in this life, and crown her
with glory in the world to come is my prayer.
Yours With much respect
most obt, Joseph Taper
Questions
1. How does Taper’s letter reverse the rhetoric, common among white Americans, which saw the
United States as a land of freedom and the British empire as lacking in liberty?
2. What aspects of life in Canada does Taper emphasize as elements of his new freedom?
72. Solomon Northup, The New Orleans
Slave Market (1853)
Source: Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave (Auburn, NY: Derby and Miller, 1853), pp. 78–
82.
The ending of the slave trade from Africa in 1808 stimulated the rapid expansion of the domestic
slave trade within the United States. More than two million slaves were sold between 1820 and 1860,
a majority to local buyers but hundreds of thousands from older states to “importing” states of the
Lower South. The public slave market of New Orleans was one great center of the slave trade, where
slaves were sold to man the plantations of the expanding Cotton Kingdom.
A free black resident of New York State, Solomon Northup was kidnapped in 1841 while in
Washington, D.C., and sold as a slave. After twelve years, during which he labored on plantations in
Louisiana, he managed to contact friends in the North who arranged for his release. His memoir,
published in 1853, became one of the most widely read accounts of slavery by someone who had
experienced it. In the twenty-first century it became the basis for an Academy Award–winning film.
In this passage, Northup describes a sale at the New Orleans slave market.
THE VERY AMIABLE, pious-hearted Mr. Theophilus Freeman, partner or consignee of James H. Burch,
and keeper of the slave pen in New-Orleans, was out among his animals early in the morning. With
an occasional kick of the older men and women, and many a sharp crack of the whip about the ears
of the younger slaves, it was not long before they were all astir, and wide awake. Mr. Theophilus
Freeman bustled about in a very industrious manner, getting his property ready for the sales-room,
intending, no doubt, to do that day a rousing business.
In the first place we were required to wash thoroughly, and those with beards, to shave. We were
then furnished with a new suit each, cheap, but clean. The men had hat, coat, shirt, pants and shoes;
the women frocks of calico, and handkerchiefs to bind about their heads. We were now conducted
into a large room in the front part of the building to which the yard was attached, in order to be
properly trained, before the admission of customers. The men were arranged on one side of the room,
the women on the other. The tallest was placed at the head of the row, then the next tallest, and so on
in the order of their respective heights. Emily was at the foot of the line of women. Freeman charged
us to remember our places; exhorted us to appear smart and lively,—sometimes threatening, and
again, holding out various inducements. During the day he exercised us in the art of “looking smart,”
and of moving to our places with exact precision. . . .
Next day many customers called to examine Freeman’s “new lot.” The latter gentleman was very
loquacious, dwelling at much length upon our several good points and qualities. He would make us
hold up our heads, walk briskly back and forth, while customers would feel of our hands and arms
and bodies, turn us about, ask us what we could do, make us open our mouths and show our teeth,
precisely as a jockey examines a horse which he is about to barter for or purchase. Sometimes a man
or woman was taken back to the small house in the yard, stripped, and inspected more minutely.
Scars upon a slave’s back were considered evidence of a rebellious or unruly spirit, and hurt his sale.
One old gentleman, who said he wanted a coachman, appeared to take a fancy to me. From his
conversation with Burch, I learned he was a resident in the city. I very much desired that he would
buy me, because I conceived it would not be difficult to make my escape from New-Orleans on some
northern vessel. Freeman asked him fifteen hundred dollars for me. The old gentleman insisted it was
too much, as times were very hard. Freeman, however, declared that I was sound and healthy, of a
good constitution, and intelligent. He made it a point to enlarge upon my musical attainments. The
old gentleman argued quite adroitly that there was nothing extraordinary about the nigger, and
finally, to my regret, went out, saying he would call again. During the day, however, a number of
sales were made. David and Caroline were purchased together by a Natchez planter. They left us,
grinning broadly, and in the most happy state of mind, caused by the fact of their not being separated.
Lethe was sold to a planter of Baton Rouge, her eyes flashing with anger as she was led away.
The same man also purchased Randall. The little fellow was made to jump, and run across the floor,
and perform many other feats, exhibiting his activity and condition. All the time the trade was going
on, Eliza was crying aloud, and wringing her hands. She besought the man not to buy him, unless he
also bought her self and Emily. She promised, in that case, to be the most faithful slave that ever
lived. The man answered that he could not afford it, and then Eliza burst into a paroxysm of grief,
weeping plaintively. Freeman turned round to her, savagely, with his whip in his uplifted hand,
ordering her to stop her noise, or he would flog her. He would not have such work—such snivelling;
and unless she ceased that minute, he would take her to the yard and give her a hundred lashes. Yes,
he would take the nonsense out of her pretty quick—if he didn’t, might he be d—d. Eliza shrunk
before him, and tried to wipe away her tears, but it was all in vain. She wanted to be with her
children, she said, the little time she had to live. All the frowns and threats of Freeman, could not
wholly silence the afflicted mother. She kept on begging and beseeching them, most piteously not to
separate the three. Over and over again she told them how she loved her boy. A great many times she
repeated her former promises—how very faithful and obedient she would be; how hard she would
labor day and night, to the last moment of her life, if he would only buy them all together. But it was
of no avail; the man could not afford it. The bargain was agreed upon, and Randall must go alone.
Then Eliza ran to him; embraced him passionately; kissed him again and again; told him to
remember her—all the while her tears falling in the boy’s face like rain.
Freeman damned her, calling her a blubbering, bawling wench, and ordered her to go to her place,
and behave herself; and be somebody. He swore he wouldn’t stand such stuff but a little longer. He
would soon give her something to cry about, if she was not mighty careful, and that she might
depend upon.
The planter from Baton Rouge, with his new purchases, was ready to depart.
“Don’t cry, mama. I will be a good boy. Don’t cry,” said Randall, looking back, as they passed out of
the door.
What has become of the lad, God knows. It was a mournful scene indeed. I would have cried myself
if I had dared.
Questions
1. What aspects of the buying and selling of slaves does Northup single out for condemnation?
2. What light does Northup’s account shed on the biblical arguments in defense of slavery in
document 70 above?
CHAPTER 12
An Age of Reform, 1820–1840
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
73. Robert Owen, “The First Discourse on a New System of Society” (1825) 222
74. Philip Schaff on Freedom as Self-Restraint (1855)
75. David Walker’s Appeal (1829) 229
76. Frederick Douglass on the Fourth of July (1852)
77. Catharine Beecher on the “Duty of American Females” (1837)
78. Angelina Grimké on Women’s Rights (1837)
79. Protest Statement of Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell (1855)
73. Robert Owen, “The First Discourse on
a New System of Society” (1825)
Source: Robert Owen, The First Discourse on a New System of Society, as Delivered in the Hall
of Representatives, at Washington, on the 25th of February, 1825 (London, 1825), pp. 3–15.
The increasing economic inequality and intense economic competition promoted by the market
revolution led some Americans to create their own miniature societies based on equality and
harmony. Through their efforts, the words “socialism” and “communism,” meaning societies in
which productive property is owned by the community rather than private individuals, entered the
language of politics.
The most important secular communitarian (meaning a person who plans or lives in a cooperative
community) was Robert Owen, a British factory owner. In 1824, he purchased the Harmony
community in Indiana originally founded by the Protestant religious leader George Rapp, and
renamed it New Harmony. Early in 1825, Owen addressed a gathering of notable Americans in the
hall of the House of Representatives—one of the few foreign citizens ever to speak there—and
outlined his vision of “a new system of society.”
THE RESULT OF . . . [my] reading, reflection, experiments, and personal communication, has been to
leave an irresistible impression on my mind, that society is in error; that the notions on which all its
institutions are founded are not true; that they necessarily generate deception and vice; and that the
practices which proceed from them are destructive of the happiness of human life.
The reflections which I am enabled to make upon the facts which the history of our race presented to
me, led me to conclude that the great object intended to be attained, by the various institutions of
every age and country, was, or ought to be, to secure happiness for the greatest number of human
beings. That this object could be obtained only, first, by a proper training and education from birth,
of the physical and mental powers of each individual; second, by arrangements to enable each
individual to procure in the best manner at all times, a full supply of those things which are necessary
and the most beneficial for human nature; and third, that all individuals should be so united and
combined in a social system, as to give to each the greatest benefit from society. . . .
• • •
Man, through ignorance, has been, hitherto, the tormentor of man.
He is here, in a nation deeming itself possessed of more privileges than all other nations, and which
pretensions, in many respects, must be admitted to be true. Yet, even here, where the laws are the
most mild, and consequently the least unjust and irrational, individuals are punished even to death,
for actions which are the natural and necessary effects arising from the injurious circumstances
which the government and society, to which they belong, unwisely permit to exist; while other
individuals are almost as much injured by being as unjustly rewarded for performing actions for
which, as soon as they shall become rational beings, they must be conscious they cannot be entitled
to a particle of merit. . . .
• • •
My desire now is to introduce into these States, and through them to the world at large, a new social
system, formed in practice of an entire new combination of circumstances, all of them having a direct
moral, intellectual, and beneficial tendency, fully adequate to effect the most important
improvements throughout society. This system has been solely derived from the facts relative to our
common nature, which I have previously explained.
In this new social arrangement, a much more perfect system of liberty and equality will be
introduced than has yet any where existed, or been deemed attainable in practice. Within it there will
be no privileged thoughts or belief; every one will be at full liberty to express the genuine
impressions which the circumstances around them have made on their minds as well as all their own
undisguised reflections thereon, and then no motive will exist for deception or insincerity of any
kind. . . .
The degrading and pernicious practices in which we are now trained, of buying cheap and selling
dear, will be rendered wholly unnecessary; for so long as this principle shall govern the transactions
of men, nothing really great or noble can be expected from mankind. . . .
• • •
In the new system, union and co-operation will supersede individual interest, and the universal
counteraction of each other’s objects; and, by the change, the powers of one man will obtain for him
the advantages of many, and all will become as rich as they will desire. The very imperfect
experiments of the Moravians, Shakers, and Harmonites, give sure proof of the gigantic superiority
of union over division, for the creation of wealth. But these associations have been hitherto subject to
many disadvantages, and their progress and success have been materially counteracted by many
obstacles which will not exist under a system, founded on a correct knowledge of the constitution of
our nature. . . .
Under this system, real wealth will be too easily obtained in perpetuity and full security to be much
longer valued as it is now by society, for the distinctions which it makes between the poor and rich.
For, when the new arrangements shall be regularly organized and completed, a few hours daily, of
healthy and desirable employment, chiefly applied to direct modern mechanical and other scientific
improvements, will be amply sufficient to create a full supply, at all times, of the best of every thing
for every one, and then all things will be valued according to their intrinsic worth, will be used
beneficially, and nothing will be wasted or abused. . . .
• • •
This is a revolution from a system in which individual reward and punishment has been the universal
practice, to one, in which individual reward and punishment will be unpracticed and unknown,
except as a grievous error of a past wretched system. On this account, my belief has long been, that
wherever society should be fully prepared to admit of one experiment on the new system, it could not
fail to be also prepared to admit the principle from which it has been derived, and to be ready for all
the practice which must emanate from the principle; and, in consequence, that the change could not
be one of slow progression, but it must take place at once, and make an immediate, and almost
instantaneous resolution in the minds and manners of the society in which it shall be introduced—
unless we can imagine that there are human beings who prefer sin and misery to virtue and
happiness. . . .
It is to effect this change that I am here this night; that, if possible, a mortal blow shall be now given
to the fundamental error which, till now, has governed this wretched world, and inflicted
unnumbered cruelties and miseries upon its inhabitants. The time has passed, within the present hour,
when this subject can be no longer mentioned or hidden from the public mind of this country. It must
now be open to the most free discussion, and I well know what will be the result. . . .
Questions
1. What does Owen see as the greatest “errors” of society in the 1820s?
2. How does he plan to increase the enjoyment of “liberty and equality”?
74. Philip Schaff on Freedom as SelfRestraint (1855)
Source: Philip Schaff, America. A Sketch of the Political, Social, and Religious Character of the
United States of North America (New York, 1855), pp. 43–47.
Numerous reform movements arose in the United States in the decades before the Civil War,
promising to liberate Americans from social injustice and from evils like drink, poverty, and slavery.
The reformers did not propose that individuals should simply follow their own desires without
restraint. Their definition of the free individual was the person who internalized the practice of selfcontrol.
Philip Schaff, a Swiss-German minister who emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1843 to teach at a small
college and later wrote a “sketch” of American society for a European audience, offered perceptive
comments on reformers’ understanding of freedom. “True national freedom, in the American view,”
Schaff observed, was “anything but an absence of restraint.” Rather, it “rests upon a moral
groundwork, upon the virtue of self-possession and self-control in individual citizens.” As an
example, Schaff offered the temperance movement, which sought to convince Americans to
renounce intoxicating liquor. The conflict between freedom as following a moral code (imposed, if
necessary, by the government) and freedom as choosing without outside interference how to conduct
one’s life would be repeated in many subsequent eras of American history.
THE WHOLE ANGLO-AMERICAN conception of freedom is specifically different from the purely
negative notion which prevails amongst the radicals and revolutionists on the continent of Europe.
With the American, freedom is anything but a mere absence of restraint, an arbitrary, licentious
indulgence, every one following his natural impulse, as the revolutionists would have it. It is a
rational, moral self-determination, hand in hand with law, order, and authority. True national
freedom, in the American view, rests upon a moral groundwork, upon the virtue of self-possession
and self-control in individual citizens. He alone is worthy of this great blessing and capable of
enjoying it, who holds his passions in check; is master of his sensual nature; obeys natural laws, not
under pressure from without, but from inward impulse, cheerfully and joyfully. But the negative and
hollow liberalism, or rather the radicalism, which undermines the authority of law and sets itself
against Christianity and the church, necessarily dissolves all social ties, and ends in anarchy; which
then passes very easily into the worst and most dangerous form of despotism.
These sound views of freedom, in connection with the moral earnestness and the Christian character
of the nation, form the basis of the North American republic, and can alone secure its permanence.
We also find there, indeed, beyond all question, utterly unsound and dangerous radical tendencies; in
the political elections all wild passions, falsehood, calumny, bribery, and wickedness of all sorts, are
let loose; and even the halls of the legislatures and of Congress are frequently disgraced by the
misconduct of unprincipled demagogues, so that multitudes of the best citizens, disgusted with the
wire-pulling and mean selfishness of self-styled friends of the people, shrink from any active
participation in politics, or discharge their duty as citizens by nothing more, at most, than their vote
at the ballot-box. But on the whole, there prevails undeniably among the people a sound conservative
tone, which exerts a constant influence in favor of right and order; and it is an imposing spectacle,
when immediately after the election of a president or governor, a universal calm at once succeeds the
furious storm of party strife, and the conquered party patiently submits to the result, never dreaming
of such a thing as asserting its real or supposed rights in any violent way. Any dissatisfaction—for
such certainly has place there as well as elsewhere—reaches never to the republican form of
government, but only to the manner of its exercise, not to the constitution of the land, but only to the
measures of the dominant party; and it seeks redress of its wrong always in a lawful, constitutional
way. So far as this goes, it may well be asserted, that the North American Union, with all the
fluctuation and insecurity of its affairs in particular instances—which is to be expected in so new a
country—stands in general more firmly on its feet, and is safer from violent revolutions, than any
country on the continent of Europe.
A very characteristic proof of our assertion, that American freedom is different in principle from
radicalism and licentiousness, and rests entirely on the basis of self-control and self-restraint, is
presented in the really sublime temperance movement, particularly in the “Maine liquor law,” as it is
called. This law wholly forbids, not directly the drinking—for this would be an infringement of
personal liberty,—but the manufacture and sale of all intoxicating drinks, including even wine and
beer, except for medicinal, mechanical, and sacramental purposes. This law was first introduced a
few years ago in the predominantly Puritanical, New England State of Maine, and has since been
extended to several other states by a popular majority; and even in the great States of New York,
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, the most zealous efforts are now making by public addresses, by tracts and
periodicals, and other means of agitation, to secure the election of legislators favorable to the
temperance cause, who will strike at the root of the terrible evil, and remove even the temptation to
drunkenness. Even last fall, shortly before the election, I was personal witness of the zeal and
earnestness, with which the agents of the temperance society, ministers and laymen, canvassed the
counties of Pennsylvania, and spreading their tent under the open heaven, after a solemn introduction
by singing and prayer, eloquently described the horrible consequences, temporal and eternal, of
intemperance, and demonstrated to the people by the most convincing arguments, the duty of using
their elective franchise in a way demanded by the public weal, in the consciousness of their high
responsibility to God and the world.
It must be granted that this Maine temperance law, in itself considered, goes too far, and is to be
ranked with radical legislation. . . .
• • •
Yet, think of the “Maine liquor law” as we may,—and we would here neither advocate nor condemn
it,—we must admire the moral energy and self-denial of a free people, which would rather renounce
an enjoyment in itself lawful, than see it drive thousands of weak persons to bodily and spiritual ruin.
To those, who see in America only the land of unbridled radicalism and of the wildest fanaticism for
freedom, I take the liberty to put the modest question: In what European state would the government
have the courage to enact such a prohibition of the traffic in all intoxicating drinks, and the people
the self-denial to submit to it?
Questions
1. How does Schaff believe Christianity influences American understandings of freedom?
2. Why does Schaff have reservations about the “Maine law” prohibiting the manufacture and
sale of liquor?
75. David Walker’s Appeal (1829)
Source: Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles, . . . to the Coloured Citizens of the World . . . , 3rd
ed. (Boston, 1830), pp. 3–5, 9, 22–24.
A pioneering document of militant abolitionism, David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of
the World condemned the hypocrisy of a nation that proclaimed its belief in liberty yet every day
violated its professed principles. Born free in North Carolina, Walker moved to Boston, where he
became a used clothing dealer and an outspoken critic of slavery. At a time when most opponents of
slavery called for a peaceful, gradual end to the institution and the “colonization” outside of the
country of those who became free, Walker insisted that blacks had as much right to live in the United
States as whites and spoke of the possibility of armed struggle against slavery. Walker also
challenged racism by invoking the achievements of ancient civilizations in Africa, and he urged
black Americans to identify with the black republic of Haiti, an early example of internationalism in
African-American thought. When free black sailors were found carrying copies of Walker’s
pamphlet, southern states issued a reward for his arrest or death. Walker died, apparently of natural
causes, in 1830, but his words inspired a generation of black abolitionists.
HAVING TRAVELED OVER a considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the course of
my travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist—the result of my
observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction, that we, (coloured people of these
United States) are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the
world began; and I pray God that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no more. They
tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last were made
up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen
nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than a
cipher—or, in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than
the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were reserved . . . to be
poured out upon our fathers, ourselves and our children, by Christian Americans! . . . I appeal to
Heaven for my motive in writing—who knows that my object is, if possible, to awaken in the breasts
of my afflicted, degraded and slumbering brethren, a spirit of inquiry and investigation respecting
our miseries and wretchedness in this Republican Land of Liberty! ! ! ! ! ! . . .
My beloved brethren:—The Indians of North and of South America—the Greeks—the Irish,
subjected under the king of Great Britain—the Jews, that ancient people of the Lord—the inhabitants
of the islands of the sea—in fine, all the inhabitants of the earth, (except however, the sons of Africa)
are called men, and of course are, and ought to be free. But we, (coloured people) and our children
are brutes!! and of course are, and ought to be SLAVES to the American people and their children
forever!! to dig their mines and work their farms; and thus go on enriching them, from one
generation to another with our blood and our tears!!!! . . .
When we take a retrospective view of the arts and sciences—the wise legislators—the Pyramids, and
other magnificent buildings—the turning of the channel of the river Nile, by the sons of Africa . . . ,
among whom learning originated, and was carried thence into Greece, where it was improved upon
and refined. Thence among the Romans, and all over the then enlightened parts of the world, and it
has been enlightening the dark and benighted minds of men from then, down to this day. I say, when
I view retrospectively, the renown of that once mighty people, the children of our great progenitor I
am indeed cheered. Yea further, when I view that mighty son of Africa, Hannibal, one of the greatest
generals of antiquity, who defeated and cut off so many thousands of the white Romans or
murderers, and who carried his victorious arms, to the very gate of Rome, and I give it as my candid
opinion, that had Carthage been well united and had given him good support, he would have carried
that cruel and barbarous city by storm. But they were disunited, as the coloured people are now, in
the United States of America, the reason our natural enemies are enabled to keep their feet on our
throats.
Beloved brethren—here let me tell you, and believe it, that the Lord our God, as true as he sits on his
throne in heaven, and as true as our Savior died to redeem the world, will give you a Hannibal, and
when the Lord shall have raised him up, and given him to you for your possession, O my suffering
brethren! remember the divisions and consequent sufferings of Carthage and of Hayti. . . . But what
need have I to refer to antiquity, when Hayti, the glory of the blacks and terror of tyrants, is enough
to convince the most avaricious and stupid of wretches?
Questions
1. Why does Walker address his pamphlet to “the coloured citizens of the world” and not just the
United States?
2. What lessons does Walker think black Americans should learn from the history of the ancient
world and that of Haiti?
76. Frederick Douglass on the Fourth of
July (1852)
Source: Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York, 1855), pp. 441–45.
The greatest oration on American slavery and American freedom was delivered in Rochester, New
York, in 1852 by Frederick Douglass. Speaking just after the annual Independence Day celebration,
Douglass posed the question, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” He answered that
July Fourth festivities revealed the hypocrisy of a nation that proclaimed its belief in liberty yet daily
committed “practices more shocking and bloody” than any other country on earth. Like other
abolitionists, however, Douglass also laid claim to the founders’ legacy. The Revolution had
proclaimed “the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in [the]
Declaration of Independence,” from which subsequent generations had tragically strayed. Only by
abolishing slavery and freeing the ideals of the Declaration from the bounds of race could the United
States, he believed, recapture its original mission.
FELLOW-CITIZENS, PARDON me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What
have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of
political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to
us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess
the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned
to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there
so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of
gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish,
that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of
servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might
eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as an hart.”
But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not
included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the
immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in
common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your
fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought
stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To
drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in
joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me,
by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is
dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down
by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the
plaintive lament of a peeled and woesmitten people!
• • •
Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions whose
chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that
reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day,
“may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To
forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be
treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.
My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular
characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American
bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character
and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to
the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems
equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds
herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this
occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered,
in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call
in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to
perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse”; I
will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man,
whose judgement is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess
to be right and just.
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the negro race. Is it not astonishing that,
while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses,
constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that,
while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having
among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are
engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the
whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking,
planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and
worshipping the Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave,
we are called upon to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own
body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for
Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great
difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How
should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show
that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and
affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your
understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is
wrong for him.
What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them
without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks,
to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at
auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into
obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and
stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength,
than such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that
our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman,
cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for
such argument is past.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and
could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting
reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the
gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the
nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation
must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man
must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all
other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your
celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling
vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted
impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your
sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast,
fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a
nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody,
than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the
old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last,
lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for
revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
Questions
1. What does Douglass hope to accomplish by accusing white Americans of injustice and
hypocrisy?
2. What evidence does Douglass present to disprove the idea of black inferiority?
77. Catharine Beecher on the “Duty of
American Females” (1837)
Source: Catharine E. Beecher, Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, with Reference to the Duty
of American Females (Philadelphia, 1837), pp. 5–6, 27, 41, 101–8, 128.
The abolitionist movement enabled women to carve out a place in the public sphere. Women
attended antislavery meetings and circulated petitions to Congress. Most prominent during the 1830s
were Angelina and Sarah Grimké, the daughters of a South Carolina slaveowner. The sisters had
been converted to Quakerism and abolitionism while visiting Philadelphia. They began to deliver
popular lectures that offered a scathing condemnation of slavery from the perspective of those who
had witnessed its evils firsthand. In 1836, Angelina Grimké wrote Appeal to the Christian Women of
the South, urging them to take a stand against slavery.
The sight of women lecturing in public to mixed male-female audiences and taking part in public
debate on political questions aroused considerable criticism. The prominent writer Catharine Beecher
responded to Grimké’s essay by reprimanding her for stepping outside “the domestic and social
sphere,” urging her to accept the fact that “heaven” had designated man “the superior” and woman
“the subordinate.”
MY DEAR FRIEND:
Your public address to Christian females at the South has reached me, and I have been urged to aid
in circulating it at the North. I have also been informed, that you contemplate a tour, during the
ensuing year, for the purpose of exerting your influence to form Abolition Societies among ladies of
the non-slave-holding States.
Our acquaintance and friendship give me a claim to your private ear; but there are reasons why it
seems more desirable to address you, who now stand before the public as an advocate of Abolition
measures, in a more public manner.
The object I have in view, is to present some reasons why it seems unwise and inexpedient for ladies
of the non-slave-holding States to unite themselves in Abolition Societies; and thus, at the same time,
to exhibit the inexpediency of the course you propose to adopt. . . .
Now Abolitionists are before the community, and declare that all slavery is sin, which ought to be
immediately forsaken; and that it is their object and intention to promote the immediate emancipation
of all the slaves in this nation. . . . [R]eproaches, rebukes, and sneers, were employed to convince the
whites that their prejudices were sinful. . . .
[T]he severing of the Union by the present mode of agitating the question . . . may be one of the
results, and, if so, what are the probabilities for a Southern republic that has torn itself off for the
purpose of excluding foreign interference, and for the purpose of perpetuating slavery? . . .
Heaven has appointed to one sex the superior, and to the other the subordinate station, and this
without any reference to the character or conduct of either. It is therefore as much for the dignity as it
is for the interest of females, in all respects to conform to the duties of this relation. . . . But while
woman holds a subordinate relation in society to the other sex, it is not because it was designed that
her duties or her influence should be any the less important, or all-pervading. But it was designed
that the mode of gaining influence and of exercising power should be altogether different and
peculiar. . . .
Woman is to win every thing by peace and love; by making herself so much respected, esteemed and
loved, that to yield to her opinions and to gratify her wishes, will be the free-will offering of the
heart. But this is to be all accomplished in the domestic and social circle. . . . But the moment woman
begins to feel the promptings of ambition, or the thirst for power, her aegis of defence is gone. All
the sacred protection of religion, all the generous promptings of chivalry, all the poetry of romantic
gallantry, depend upon woman’s retaining her place as dependent and defenceless, and making no
claims, and maintaining no right but what are the gifts of honour, rectitude and love.
A woman may seek the aid of co-operation and combination among her own sex, to assist her in her
appropriate offices of piety, charity, maternal and domestic duty; but whatever, in any measure,
throws a woman into the attitude of a combatant either for herself or others—whatever binds her in a
party conflict—whatever obliges her in any way to exert coercive influences, throws her out of her
appropriate sphere. . . .
If it is asked, “May not woman appropriately come forward as a suppliant for a portion of her sex
who are bound in cruel bondage?” It is replied, that, the rectitude and propriety of any such measure,
depend entirely on its probable results. If petitions from females will operate to exasperate; if they
will be deemed obtrusive, indecorous, and unwise, by those to whom they are addressed; . . . if they
will be the opening wedge, that will eventually bring females as petitioners and partisans into every
political measure that may tend to injure and oppress their sex . . . then it is neither appropriate nor
wise, nor right, for a woman to petition for the relief of oppressed females. . . .
In this country, petitions to congress, in reference to the official duties of legislators, seem, IN ALL
CASES, to fall entirely without the sphere of female duty. Men are the proper persons to make appeals
to the rulers whom they appoint, and if their female friends, by arguments and persuasions, can
induce them to petition, all the good that can be done by such measures will be secured. But if
females cannot influence their nearest friends, to urge forward a public measure in this way, they
surely are out of their place, in attempting to do it themselves. . . .
It is allowed by all reflecting minds, that the safety and happiness of this nation depends upon having
the children educated, and not only intellectually, but morally and religiously. There are now nearly
two millions of children and adults in this country who cannot read, and who have no schools of any
kind. To give only a small supply of teachers to these destitute children, who are generally where the
population is sparse, will demand thirty thousand teachers at the moment and an addition of two
thousand every year. Where is this army of teachers to be found? Is it at all probable that the other
sex will afford even a moderate portion of this supply? . . . Men will be educators in the college, in
the high school, in some of the most honourable and lucrative common schools, but the children, the
little children of this nation must, to a wide extent, be taught by females, or remain untaught. . . . And
as the value of education rises in the public mind . . . women will more and more be furnished with
those intellectual advantages which they need to fit them for such duties.
The result will be, that America will be distinguished above all other nations, for well-educated
females and for the influence they will exert on the general interests of society. But if females, as
they approach the other sex, in intellectual elevation, begin to claim, or to exercise in any manner,
the peculiar prerogatives of that sex, education will prove a doubtful and dangerous blessing. But this
will never be the result. For the more intelligent a woman becomes, the more she can appreciate the
wisdom of that ordinance that appointed her subordinate station.
But it may be asked, is there nothing to be done to bring this national sin of slavery to an end? Must
the internal slave-trade, a trade now ranked as piracy among all civilized nations, still prosper in our
bounds? Must the very seat of our government stand as one of the chief slave-markets of the land;
and must not Christian females open their lips, nor lift a finger, to bring such a shame and sin to an
end? To this it may be replied, that Christian females may, and can say and do much to bring these
evils to an end; and the present is a time and an occasion when it seems most desirable that they
should know, and appreciate, and exercise the power which they do possess for so desirable an
end. . . .
In the present aspect of affairs among us, when everything seems to be tending to disunion and
distraction, it surely has become the duty of every female instantly to relinquish the attitude of a
partisan, in every matter of clashing interests, and to assume the office of a mediator, and an
advocate of peace. And to do this, it is not necessary that a woman should in any manner relinquish
her opinion as to the evils or the benefits, the right or the wrong, of any principle of practice. But,
while quietly holding her own opinions, and calmly avowing them, when conscience and integrity
make the duty imperative, every female can employ her influence, not for the purpose of exciting or
regulating public sentiment, but rather for the purpose of promoting a spirit of candour, forbearance,
charity, and peace.
Questions
1. How does Beecher think women should exert power within American society?
2. Why does she believe that the abolitionist movement is dangerous?
78. Angelina Grimké on Women’s Rights
(1837)
Source: The Liberator, October 13, 1837.
In response to Catharine Beecher’s criticism, Angelina Grimké wrote a series of twelve letters
forthrightly defending the right of women to take part in political debate. The final one addressed the
question of women’s rights directly. “I know nothing,” she wrote, “of men’s rights and women’s
rights.” “My doctrine,” she declared, “is that whatever is morally right for man to do, it is morally
right for woman to do.” The Grimké sisters soon retired from the fray, after Angelina married the
abolitionist Theodore Weld. But their writings helped to spark the movement for women’s rights that
arose in the 1840s.
SINCE I ENGAGED in the investigation of the rights of the slave, I have necessarily been led to a better
understanding of my own; for I have found the Anti-Slavery cause to be the high school of morals in
our land—the school in which human rights are more fully investigated, and better understood and
taught, than in any other benevolent enterprise. Here one great fundamental principle is disinterred,
which, as soon as it is uplifted to public view, leads the mind into a thousand different ramifications,
into which the rays of this central light are streaming with brightness and glory. Here we are led to
examine why human beings have any rights. It is because they are moral beings; the rights of all
men, from the king to the slave, are built upon their moral nature: and as all men have this moral
nature, so all men have essentially the same rights. These rights may be plundered from the slave, but
they cannot be alienated: his right and title to himself is as perfect now, as is that of Lyman Beecher:
they are written in his moral being, and must remain unimpaired as long as that being continues.
Now it naturally occurred to me, that if rights were founded in moral being, then the circumstance of
sex could not give to man higher rights and responsibilities, than to woman. To suppose that it did,
would be to deny the self-evident truth, “that the physical constitution is the mere instrument of the
moral nature.” To suppose that it did, would be to break up utterly the relations of the two natures,
and to reverse their functions, exalting the animal nature into a monarch, and humbling the moral
into a slave; “making the former a proprietor, and the latter its property.” When I look at human
beings as moral beings, all distinction in sex sinks to insignificance and nothingness; for I believe it
regulates rights and responsibilities no more than the color of the skin or the eyes. My doctrine then
is, that whatever it is morally right for man to do, it is morally right for woman to do. Our duties are
governed, not by difference of sex, but by the diversity of our relative connections in life, and the
variety of gifts and talents committed to our care, and the different eras in which we live.
This regulation of duty by the mere circumstance of sex, rather than by the fundamental principle of
moral being, has led to all that multifarious train of evils flowing out of the anti-christian doctrine of
masculine and feminine virtues. By this doctrine, man has been converted into the warrior, and
clothed in sternness, and those other kindred qualities, which, in the eyes of many, belong to his
character as a man; whilst woman has been taught to lean upon an arm of flesh, to sit as a soul
arrayed “in gold and pearls, and costly array,” to be admired for her personal charms, and caressed
and humored like a spoiled child, or converted into a mere drudge to suit the convenience of her lord
and master. This principle has spread desolation over the whole moral world, and brought into all the
diversified relations of life, “confusion and every evil work.” It has given to man a charter for the
exercise of tyranny and selfishness, pride and arrogance, lust and brutal violence. It has robbed
woman of essential rights, the right to think and speak and act on all great moral questions, just as
men think and speak and act; the right to share their responsibilities, dangers, and toils; the right to
fulfill the great end of her being, as a help meet for man, as a moral, intellectual and immortal
creature, and of glorifying God in her body and her spirit which are His. Hitherto, instead of being a
help meet to man, in the highest, noblest sense of the term, as a companion, a co-worker, an equal;
she has been a mere appendage of his being, and instrument of his convenience and pleasure, the
pretty toy, with which he wiled away his leisure moments, or the pet animal whom he humored into
playfulness and submission. Woman, instead of being regarded as the equal of man, has uniformly
been looked down upon as his inferior, a mere gift to fill up the measure of his happiness. In the
poetry of “romantic gallantry,” it is true, she has been called the “last best gift of God to man”; but I
believe I speak forth the words of truth and soberness when I affirm, that woman never was given to
man. She was created, like him, in the image of God, and crowned with glory and honor; created
only a little lower than the angels,—not, as is too generally presumed, a little lower than man; on her
brow, as well as on his, was placed the “diadem of beauty,” and in her hand the scepter of universal
dominion. . . .
Measure her rights and duties by the sure, unerring standard of moral being, not by the false rights
and measures of a mere circumstance of her human existence, and then will it become a self-evident
truth, that whatever it is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do. I
recognize no rights but human rights—I know nothing of men’s rights and women’s rights; for in
Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female; and it is my solemn conviction, that, until this
important principle of equality is recognized and carried out into practice, that vain will be the efforts
of the church to do anything effectual for the permanent reformation of the world. Woman was the
first transgressor, and the first victim of power. In all the heathen nations, she has been the slave of
man, and no Christian nation has ever acknowledged her rights. Nay more, no Christian Society has
ever done so either, on the broad and solid basis of humanity. I know that in some few
denominations, she is permitted to preach the gospel; but this is not done from a conviction of her
equality as a human being, but of her equality in spiritual gifts—for we find that woman, even in
these Societies, is not allowed to make the Discipline by which she is to be governed. Now, I believe
it is her right to be consulted in all the laws and regulations by which she is to be governed, whether
in Church or State, and that the present arrangement of Society, on those points, are a violation of
human rights, an usurpation of power over her, which is working mischief, great mischief, in the
world. If Ecclesiastical and Civil governments are ordained of God, then I contend that woman has
just as much right to sit in solemn counsel in Conventions, Conferences, Associations, and General
Assemblies, as man—just as much right to sit upon the throne of England, or in the Presidential chair
of the United States, as man. . . .
• • •
I believe the discussion of Human Rights at the North has already been of immense advantage to this
country. It is producing the happiest influence upon the minds and hearts of those who are engaged
in it; . . . Indeed, the very agitation of the question, which it involved, has been highly important.
Never was the heart of man so expanded; never were its generous sympathies so generally and so
perseveringly excited. These sympathies, thus called into existence, have been useful preservatives of
national virtue. I therefore do wish very much to promote the Anti-Slavery excitement at the North,
because I believe it will prove a useful preservative of national virtue. . . .
The discussion of the wrongs of slavery has opened the way for the discussion of other rights, and
the ultimate result will most certainly be “the breaking of every yoke,” the letting the oppressed of
every grade and description go free—an emancipation far more glorious than any the world has ever
yet seen, an introduction into that liberty wherewith Christ hath made his people free. . . .
Questions
1. Why does Angelina Grimké call the abolitionist movement the nation’s foremost “school [of]
human rights”?
2. What role does she think the difference between the sexes should play in determining a
person’s rights and obligations?
79. Protest Statement of Lucy Stone and
Henry Blackwell (1855)
Source: Elizabeth Cady Stanton et al., History of Woman Suffrage (New York, 1881), vol. 1, pp.
260–61.
A graduate of Oberlin College, Lucy Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college
degree. She became a widely admired lecturer on abolitionism and feminism, and one of the leading
advocates of women’s rights of the pre–Civil War years. In 1855 she married another reformer,
Henry B. Blackwell. Under the prevailing common law principle of coverture, married women
surrendered most of their legal rights to their husband, a situation the couple considered unjust. At
their wedding they read a “protest” against laws relating to marriage and women’s freedom more
generally. They also worked out a private agreement whereby each partner would retain control of
his or her income and property, nor would one determine where they would live without the consent
of the other. Very unusually for the time, Lucy Stone also retained her maiden name after marrying.
WHILE WE ACKNOWLEDGE our mutual affection by publicly assuming the relationship of husband and
wife, yet in justice to ourselves and a great principle, we deem it a duty to declare that this act on our
part implies no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of
marriage, as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon
the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority, investing him with legal powers which no
honorable man would exercise, and which no man should possess. We protest especially against the
laws which give to the husband:
1. The custody of the wife’s person.
2. The exclusive control and guardianship of their children.
3. The sole ownership of her personal, and use of her real estate, unless previously settled upon
her, or placed in the hands of trustees, as in the case of minors, lunatics, and idiots.
4. The absolute right to the product of her industry.
5. Also against laws which give to the widower so much larger and more permanent interest in
the property of his deceased wife, than they give to the widow in that of the deceased husband.
6. Finally, against the whole system by which “the legal existence of the wife is suspended
during marriage,” so that in most States, she neither has a legal part in the choice of her
residence, nor canshe make a will, nor sue or be sued in her own name, nor inherit property.
We believe that personal independence and equal human rights can never be forfeited, except for
crime; that marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership, and so recognized by law; that
until it is so recognized, married partners should provide against the radical injustice of present laws,
by every means in their power.
We believe that where domestic difficulties arise, no appeal should be made to legal tribunals under
existing laws, but that all difficulties should be submitted to the equitable adjustment of arbitrators
mutually chosen.
Thus reverencing law, we enter our protest against rules and customs which are unworthy of the
name, since they violate justice, the essence of law.
Henry B. Blackwell
Lucy Stone
Questions
1. What aspects of the law of marriage seem most objectionable to the couple?
2. What is the “great principle” to which they refer at the beginning of the “Protest”?
CHAPTER 13
A House Divided, 1840–1861
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
80. John L. O’Sullivan, Manifest Destiny (1845)
81. A Protest against Anti-Chinese Prejudice (1852)
82. Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
83. American Party Platform (1856)
84. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, The Dred Scott Decision (1857)
85. Texas Declaration of Independence (1836)
86. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
87. South Carolina Ordinance of Secession (1860)
80. John L. O’Sullivan, Manifest Destiny
(1845)
Source: John L. O’Sullivan, “Annexation,” United States Magazine, and Democratic Review,
vol. 17 (July–August 1845), pp. 5–10.
The expansionist spirit of the 1840s was captured in the phrase “manifest destiny,” coined by John L.
O’Sullivan, a New York journalist. O’Sullivan employed it to suggest that the United States had a
divinely appointed mission to occupy all of North America. This right to the continent was provided
by the nation’s mission to extend the area of freedom. In the excerpt that follows, O’Sullivan defends
the annexation of Texas, and suggests that California, then a province of Mexico, would be the next
area to be absorbed into the United States, linked to the rest of the country by a new transcontinental
railroad. O’Sullivan foresees the day when one government will control the entire North American
continent. The spirit of manifest destiny would soon help to justify the Mexican War and, half a
century later, the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines as a result of the Spanish-American
War.
IT IS TIME now for all opposition to annexation of Texas to cease. . . . Texas is now ours. Already,
before these records are written, her convention has undoubtedly ratified the acceptance, by her
congress, of our proffered invitation into the Union; and made the requisite changes in her already
republican form of constitution to adapt it to its future federal relations. Her star and stripe may
already be said to have taken their place in the glorious blazon of our common nationality; and the
sweep of our eagle’s wing already includes within its circuit the wide extent of her fair and fertile
land.
She is no longer to us a mere geographical space—a certain combination of coast, plain, mountain,
valley, forest, and stream. She is no longer to us a mere country on the map. . . . It is time when all
should cease to treat her as alien, and even adverse . . . and cease . . . thwarting our policy and
hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to
overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying
millions.
• • •
It is wholly untrue, and unjust to ourselves, the pretense that the annexation has been a measure of
spoliation, unrightful and unrighteous of military conquest under forms of peace and law of territorial
aggrandizement at the expense of justice. . . .
The independence of Texas was complete and absolute. It was an independence, not only in fact, but
of right. . . . If Texas became peopled with an American population, it was by no contrivance of our
government, but on the express invitation of that of Mexico herself; accompanied with such
guaranties of state independence, and the maintenance of a federal system analogous to our own. . . .
She was released, rightfully and absolutely released, from all Mexican allegiance, or duty of
cohesion to the Mexican political body, by acts and fault of Mexico herself, and Mexico alone. There
was never a clearer case. It was not revolution; it was resistance to revolution: and resistance under
such circumstances as left independence the necessary resulting state, caused by the abandonment of
those with whom her former federal association had existed.
Nor is there any just foundation for the charge that annexation is a great pro-slavery measure
calculated to increase and perpetuate that institution. Slavery had nothing to do with it. Opinions
were and are greatly divided, both at the North and South, as to the influence to be exerted by it on
slavery and the slave states. . . .
Every new slave state in Texas will make at least one free state from among those in which that
institution now exists—to say nothing of those portions of Texas on which slavery cannot spring and
grow—to say nothing of the far more rapid growth of new states in the free West and Northwest, as
these fine regions are overspread by the emigration fast flowing over them from Europe, as well as
from the Northern and Eastern states of the Union as it exists. . . .
California will, probably, next fall away from the loose adhesion which, in such a country as Mexico,
holds a remote province in a slight equivocal kind of dependence on the metropolis. Imbecile and
distracted, Mexico never can exert any real government authority over such a country. . . .
In the case of California this is now impossible. The Anglo-Saxon foot is already on its borders.
Already the advance guard of the irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour
down upon it, armed with the plough and the rifle, and marking its trail with schools and colleges,
courts and representative halls, mills and meetinghouses. A population will soon be in actual
occupation of California, over which it will be idle for Mexico to dream of dominion. They will
necessarily become independent. All this without agency of our government, without responsibility
of our people. . . .
And they will have a right to independence—to self-government—to the possession of the homes
conquered from the wildness of their own labors and dangers, sufferings and sacrifices—a better and
a truer right than the artificial title of sovereignty in Mexico, a thousand miles distant, inheriting
from Spain a title good only against those who have none better. Their right to independence will be
the natural right of self-government belonging to any community strong enough to maintain it. . . .
This will be their title to independence; and by this title, there can be no doubt that the population
now fast streaming down upon California will both assert and maintain that independence.
Whether they will attach themselves to our Union or not is not to be predicted with any certainty.
Unless the projected railroad across the continent to the Pacific be carried into effect, perhaps they
may not; though even in that case, the day when the empires of the Atlantic and Pacific would again
flow together into one, as soon as their inland border should approach each other. But that great
work, colossal as appears the plan on its first suggestion, cannot remain long unbuilt.
Its [the transcontinental railroad] necessity for this very purpose of binding and holding together in
its iron clasp our fast settling Pacific region with that of the Mississippi Valley, the natural facility of
the route, the ease with which any amount of labor for the construction can be drawn in from the
overcrowded populations of Europe, to be paid in the lands made valuable by the progress of the
work itself and its immense utility, to the whole commerce of the world with the whole eastern coast
of Asia, alone almost sufficient for the support of such a road—these considerations give assurance
that the day cannot be distant which shall witness the conveyance of representatives from Oregon
and California to Washington [D.C.] within less time than a few years ago was devoted to a similar
journey by those from Ohio; while the magnetic telegraph will enable the editors of the San
Francisco Union, the Astoria Evening Post, or the Nootka Morning News, to set up in type the first
half of the President’s inaugural before the echoes of the latter half shall have died away beneath the
lofty porch of the Capitol, as spoken from his lips.
Away, then, with all idle French talk of balances of power on the American continent. There is no
growth in Spanish America! Whatever progress of population may be in British Canada, is only for
their own early severance of their present colonial relation to the little island 3,000 miles across the
Atlantic; soon to be followed by annexation, and destined to swell the still accumulating momentum
of our progress.
And whosoever may hold the balance, though they should cast into the opposite scale all the
bayonets and cannon, not only of France and England, but of Europe entire, how would it kick the
beam against the simple, solid weight of the 250, or 300 million, and American millions destined to
gather beneath the flutter of the stars and stripes, in the fast hastening year of the Lords 1845!
Questions
1. What connection does O’Sullivan see between manifest destiny and the idea of American
freedom?
2. What does O’Sullivan mean when he describes America’s destiny to rule the entire continent
as “manifest”?
81. A Protest against Anti-Chinese
Prejudice (1852)
Source: Daily Alta California (San Francisco), May 5, 1852.
The discovery of gold in California in 1848 unleashed a massive influx of migrants hoping to make
their fortunes. The non-Indian population, under 15,000 in 1848, rose to over 360,000 by 1860.
Prospectors came to the gold fields from all over the world—the eastern states, Europe, Latin
America, and Asia. Nearly 25,000 Chinese landed between 1849 and 1852, most of them young men
who had signed long-term labor contracts and went to work for the state’s mines and railroads. AntiChinese sentiment quickly developed and in 1852 the state’s governor, Democrat John Bigler,
proposed that the legislature restrict Chinese immigration (even though the Constitution gives power
over immigration to the federal government). In response, Norman Asing, a naturalized American
citizen and leader of the Chinese community of San Francisco, issued an eloquent appeal for equal
rights for the Chinese.
SIR: I AM a Chinaman, a republican, and a lover of free institutions; am much attached to the
principles of the government of the United States, and therefore take the liberty of addressing you as
the chief of the government of this State. Your official position gives you a great opportunity of good
and evil. . . . The effect of your late message has been thus far to prejudice the public mind against
my people, to enable those who wait the opportunity to hunt them down, and rob them of the rewards
of their toil. You may not have meant that this should be the case, but you can see what will be the
result of your propositions.
I am not much acquainted with your logic, that by excluding population from this State you enhance
its wealth. I have always considered that population was wealth; particularly a population of
producers, of men who by the labor of their hands or intellect, enrich the warehouses or the granaries
of the country with the products of nature and art. You are deeply convinced you say “that to
enhance the prosperity and preserve the tranquility of this State, Asiatic immigration must be
checked.” This, your Excellency, is but one step towards a retrograde movement of the government,
which, on reflection, you will discover; and which the citizens of this country ought never to tolerate.
It was one of the principal causes of quarrel between you (when colonies) and England; when the
latter pressed laws against emigration, you looked for immigration; it came, and immigration made
you what you are—your nation what it is. It transferred you at once from childhood to manhood and
made you great and respectable throughout the nations of the earth. I am sure your Excellency
cannot, if you would, prevent your being called the descendant of an immigrant, for I am sure you do
not boast of being a descendant of the red man. But your further logic is more reprehensible. You
argue that this is a republic of a particular race—that the Constitution of the United States admits of
no asylum to any other than the pale face. This proposition is false in the extreme, and you know it.
The declaration of your independence, and all the acts of your government, your people, and your
history are all against you. . . .
We would beg to remind you that when your nation was a wilderness, and the nation from which you
sprung barbarous, we exercised most of the arts and virtues of civilized life; that we are possessed of
a language and a literature, and that men skilled in science and the arts are numerous among us; that
the productions of our manufactories, our sail, and workshops, form no small share of the commerce
of the world; and that for centuries, colleges, schools, charitable institutions, asylums, and hospitals,
have been as common as in your own land. That our people cannot be reproved for their idleness,
and that your historians have given them due credit for the variety and richness of their works of art,
and for their simplicity of manners, and particularly their industry. And we beg to remark, that so far
as the history of our race in California goes, it stamps with the test of truth the fact that we are not the
degraded race you would make us. We came amongst you as mechanics or traders, and following
every honorable business of life. . . .
I am a naturalized citizen, your Excellency, of Charleston, South Carolina, and a Christian, too; and
so hope you will stand corrected in your assertion “that none of the Asiatic class” as you are pleased
to term them, have applied for benefits under our naturalization act. I could point out to you numbers
of citizens, all over the whole continent, who have taken advantage of your hospitality and
citizenship, and I defy you to say that our race have ever abused that hospitality or forfeited their
claim on this or any of the governments of South America, by an infringement on the laws of the
countries into which they pass. You find us peculiarly peaceable and orderly. It does not cost your
state much for our criminal prosecution. We apply less to your courts for redress, and so far as I
know, there are none who are a charge upon the state, as paupers.
Questions
1. Why does Asing argue that the governor’s proposal violates the Constitution and the principles
of the Declaration of Independence?
2. How does he invoke the history of China to bolster his criticism of the idea of excluding
Chinese immigrants from the United States?
82. Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act
(1850)
Source: Middletown Sentinel and Witness, October 29, 1850.
The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 tested in the most direct way the relationship between
law and liberty. Numerous northerners announced that they would not obey the new measure, which
abrogated local laws that sought to prevent the kidnapping of free blacks. It required individuals to
assist in the capture of fugitives if called upon by federal authorities, and did not allow an accused
fugitive slave to testify at a hearing that determined his or her status. In the previous year, Henry
David Thoreau had published his well-known essay on civil disobedience, which defended the right
to violate unjust laws. In 1850, six residents of Middletown, Connecticut, in a similar spirit, wrote a
letter to the local newspaper explaining why they would not obey the new law.
THE UNDERSIGNED ARE friends of law. We reverence law. We are of the party of law and order. Law
comes from the bosom of God and is sacred. Even an imperfect law we will respect and bear with,
till we can obtain its modification or repeal. But all is not law which calls itself law. When iniquity
frames itself into law, the sacredness of law is gone. When an enactment, falsely calling itself law, is
imposed upon us, which disgraces our country, which invades our conscience, which dishonors our
religion, which is an outrage upon our sense of justice, we take our stand against the imposition.
The Fugitive Slave Law commands all good citizens to be slave catchers. Good citizens cannot be
slave catchers, any more than light can be darkness. You tell us, the Union will be endangered if we
oppose this law. We reply, that greater things than the Union will be endangered, if we submit to it:
Conscience, Humanity, Self-respect are greater than the Union, and these must be preserved at all
hazards. This pretended law commands us to withhold food and raiment and shelter from the most
needy—we cannot obey. It commands us to be base and dishonorable—we cannot obey. . . . When
our sense of decency is clean gone forever, we will turn slave catchers; till then, never. You tell us
that great men made this law. If great men choose to disgrace themselves, choose to put off all
manliness, and plunge all over into meanness and dishonor, it does not follow that small men should
do so too. If Beacon Street [a chief commercial street in Boston] and Marshfield [Daniel Webster’s
estate] choose to turn slave catchers, let them. We farmers and working men choose to stay by our
plows and mills. . . . We are not yet ready to give ourselves over to all manner of villainy. Be the
consequence what it may, come fines, come imprisonment, come what will, this thing you call law
we will not obey.”
Questions
1. Whom do the Connecticut writers seem to blame for the Fugitive Slave Act?
2. How do the writers justify deciding to break the law?
83. American Party Platform (1856)
Source: W. S. Tisdale, ed., The True American’s Almanac and Politician’s Manual for 1857
(New York, 1857).
Hostility to immigrants has been a persistent feature of American life. In 1854, as the Whig Party
broke apart over the slavery issue, two new parties made their appearance—the Republicans, devoted
to stopping the westward expansion of slavery, and the Native American Party (sometimes called the
Know-Nothings because it originated as a secret society whose members were not supposed to reveal
information about the organization), dedicated to limiting the political power of immigrants and
making it more difficult for them to become naturalized citizens. In the elections of 1854, the KnowNothings made significant gains in several northern states and the upper tier of slave states. They
won support from native-born workers who feared that immigration was exerting downward pressure
on wages, and among voters seeking a platform on which northerners and southerners could unite. In
1856, the Native American Party candidate for president, Millard Fillmore, received over 20 percent
of the vote. But the party soon fell victim to the sectional divisions that were roiling the political
system.
1. An humble acknowledgment to the Supreme Being, for his protecting care vouchsafed to our
fathers in their successful Revolutionary struggle, and hitherto manifested to us, their
descendants, in the preservation of the liberties, the independence and the union of these
States.
2. The perpetuation of the Federal Union and Constitution, as the palladium of our civil and
religious liberties, and the only sure bulwarks of American Independence.
3. Americans must rule America, and to this end native-born citizens should be selected for all
State, Federal, and municipal offices of government employment, in preference to all others.
Nevertheless,
4. Persons born of American parents residing temporarily abroad, should be entitled to all the
rights of native-born citizens.
5. No person should be selected for political station (whether of native or foreign birth), who
recognizes any allegiance or obligation of any description to any foreign prince, potentate or
power, or who refuses to recognize the Federal and State Constitution (each within its sphere)
as paramount to all other laws, as rules of political action.
6. The unequaled recognition and maintenance of the reserved rights of the several States, and the
cultivation of harmony and fraternal good will between the citizens of the several States, and
to this end, non-interference by Congress with questions appertaining solely to the individual
States, and non-intervention by each State with the affairs of any other State.
7. The recognition of the right of native-born and naturalized citizens of the United States,
permanently residing in any Territory thereof, to frame their constitution and laws, and to
regulate their domestic and social affairs in their own mode, subject only to the provisions of
the Federal Constitution, with the privilege of admission into the Union whenever they have
the requisite population for one Representative in Congress: Provided, always, that none but
those who are citizens of the United States, under the Constitution and laws thereof, and who
have a fixed residence in any such territory, ought to participate in the formation of the
Constitution, or in the enactment of laws for said Territory or State.
8. An enforcement of the principles that no State or Territory ought to admit others than citizens
to the right of suffrage, or of holding political offices of the United States.
9. A change in the laws of naturalization, making a continued residence of twenty-one years, of
all not heretofore provided for, an indispensable requisite for citizenship hereafter, and
excluding all paupers, and persons convicted of crime, from landing upon our shores; but no
interference with the vested rights of foreigners.
10. Opposition to any union between Church and State; no interference with religious faith or
worship, and no test oaths for office. . . .
13. Opposition to the reckless and unwise policy of the present Administration in the general
management of our national affairs, and more especially as shown in removing “Americans”
(by designation) and Conservatives in principle, from office, and placing foreigners and
Ultraists in their places; as shown in a truckling subserviency to the stronger, and an insolent
and cowardly bravado towards the weaker powers; as shown in re-opening sectional agitation;
by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; as shown in granting to unnaturalized foreigners
the right of suffrage in Kansas and Nebraska question; as shown in the corruptions which
pervade some of the Departments of the Government; as shown in disgracing meritorious
naval officers through prejudice or caprice; and as shown in the blundering mismanagement of
our foreign relations.
Questions
1. What aspects of immigration seem to most alarm the American Party?
2. How do they seek to circumvent division over the slavery question?
84. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, The
Dred Scott Decision (1857)
Source: Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. 393 (156).
In the Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court attempted to resolve a divisive question: were free
African-American citizens of the United States? Dred Scott, a slave in Missouri, and his wife Harriet
had been taken by their owner first to Illinois, where slavery was barred by state law, and then to
Wisconsin Territory, where Congress had prohibited it under the Missouri Compromise. On their
return to Missouri, Scott sued for their freedom, claiming that residence on free soil had made them
free. The case involved several controversial issues, including whether Congress possessed the
power to bar slavery from a territory. The Court decided that it did not and that the Missouri
Compromise, which had been repealed in 1854, had been constitutional. But first, the Court had to
decide whether Scott was a citizen, with standing to sue. For the majority, Chief Justice Roger B.
Taney answered no. The nation’s founders, he argued, intended to limit American citizenship to
white persons alone. Taney’s statement that blacks had “no rights which the white man was bound to
respect” is remembered today as one of the most infamous in the history of the Supreme Court.
THE QUESTION IS simply this: can a Negro whose ancestors were imported into this country and sold
as slaves become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the
Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and
immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen, one of which rights is the privilege of suing
in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution?
It will be observed that the plea applies to that class of persons only whose ancestors were Negroes
of the African race, and imported into this country and sold and held as slaves. The only matter in
issue before the court, therefore, is, whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be
emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a
State in the sense in which the word “citizen” is used in the Constitution of the United States. And
this being the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, the court must be understood as speaking in
this opinion of that class only, that is, of those persons who are the descendants of Africans who
were imported into this country and sold as slaves. . . .
The words “people of the United States” and “citizens” are synonymous terms, and mean the same
thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the
sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives.
They are what we familiarly call the “sovereign people,” and every citizen is one of this people and a
constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons
described in the plea . . . compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members of this
sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be
included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights
and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the
contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had
been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their
authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government
might choose to grant them. . . .
They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether
unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that
they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. . . .
The general words [of the Declaration of Independence] would seem to embrace the whole human
family . . . But it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be
included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration; for if the
language, as understood in that day, would embrace them, the conduct of the distinguished men who
framed the Declaration of Independence would have been utterly and flagrantly inconsistent with the
principles they asserted; and instead of the sympathy of mankind to which they so confidently
appealed, they would have deserved and received universal rebuke and reprobation.
Yet the men who framed this declaration were great men—high in literary acquirements—high in
their sense of honor, and incapable of asserting principles inconsistent with those on which they were
acting. They perfectly understood the meaning of the language they used, and how it would be
understood by others; and they knew that it would not in any part of the civilized world be supposed
to embrace the Negro race, which, by common consent, had been excluded from civilized
Governments and the family of nations, and doomed to slavery. They spoke and acted according to
the then established doctrines and principles, and in the ordinary language of the day, and no one
misunderstood them. The unhappy black race were separated from the white by indelible marks, and
laws long before established, and were never thought of or spoken of except as property, and when
the claims of the owner or the profit of the trader were supposed to need protection.
Questions
1. What evidence does Taney present that blacks were not considered citizens by the authors of
the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
2. Why do you think he bases his argument on what he says were the intentions of the founders
rather than the situation of free blacks in the 1850s?
85. Texas Declaration of Independence
(1836)
Source: Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
In the 1820s, some 7,000 emigrants from the United States emigrated to Texas, then part of Mexico,
whose government at first welcomed them to the sparsely settled region. But as the number of
emigrants grew, the Mexican government became alarmed and sought to discourage newcomers.
When the settlers demanded greater autonomy, the Mexican government sent an army to impose
central authority. In response, a convention of representatives from American settlements on March
2, 1836, declared Texas an independent nation. Like the revolutionaries of 1776, they issued a
Declaration explaining their action. Sixty men signed the Declaration; three had been born in
Mexico, the remainder in the United States. Texas would win the war and remain independent until
1845, when it was annexed to the United States.
WHEN A GOVERNMENT has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people, from whom
its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted, and
so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes
an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression.
When the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no
longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly
changed, without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states,
to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the
army and the priesthood, both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, the everready minions of power,
and the usual instruments of tyrants.
When, long after the spirit of the constitution has departed, moderation is at length so far lost by
those in power, that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms themselves of the
constitution discontinued, and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the
agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons, and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new
government upon them at the point of the bayonet.
When, in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication on the part of the government,
anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements. In such a crisis, the first law
of nature, the right of self-preservation, the inherent and inalienable rights of the people to appeal to
first principles, and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases, enjoins it as a
right towards themselves, and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government, and
create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their
future welfare and happiness.
Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion of mankind. A
statement of a part of our grievances is therefore submitted to an impartial world, in justification of
the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken, of severing our political connection with the Mexican
people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.
The Mexican government, by its colonization laws, invited and induced the Anglo-American
population of Texas to colonize its wilderness under the pledged faith of a written constitution, that
they should continue to enjoy that constitutional liberty and republican government to which they
had been habituated in the land of their birth, the United States of America.
In this expectation they have been cruelly disappointed, inasmuch as the Mexican nation has
acquiesced in the late changes made in the government by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna,
who having overturned the constitution of his country, now offers us the cruel alternative, either to
abandon our homes, acquired by so many privations, or submit to the most intolerable of all tyranny,
the combined despotism of the sword and the priesthood. . . .
It has failed to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless
resources, (the public domain), and although it is an axiom in political science, that unless a people
are educated and enlightened, it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty, or the capacity for
self government. . . .
It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience,
by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human
functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.
It has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defence, the rightful property of
freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical governments.
It has invaded our country both by sea and by land, with intent to lay waste our territory, and drive us
from our homes; and has now a large mercenary army advancing, to carry on against us a war of
extermination.
It has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to
massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers. . . .
These, and other grievances, were patiently borne by the people of Texas, until they reached that
point at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. We then took up arms in defence of the national
constitution. We appealed to our Mexican brethren for assistance. Our appeal has been made in vain.
Though months have elapsed, no sympathetic response has yet been heard from the Interior. We are,
therefore, forced to the melancholy conclusion, that the Mexican people have acquiesced in the
destruction of their liberty, and the substitution therefore of a military government; that they are unfit
to be free, and incapable of self government. . . .
We, therefore, the delegates with plenary powers of the people of Texas, in solemn convention
assembled, appealing to a candid world for the necessities of our condition, do hereby resolve and
declare, that our political connection with the Mexican nation has forever ended, and that the people
of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic, and are fully invested with
all the rights and attributes which properly belong to independent nations; and, conscious of the
rectitude of our intentions, we fearlessly and confidently commit the issue to the decision of the
Supreme arbiter of the destinies of nations.
Questions
1. In what ways is this Declaration similar to the American Declaration of Independence?
2. What seems to be the attitude of the Texas revolutionaries toward other elements of Texas
society (Mexicans, Native Americans, and slaves)?
86. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
Source: Political Debates between Honorable Abraham Lincoln and Honorable Stephen
Douglas, in the Celebrated Campaign of 1858 (Columbus, Ohio, 1860), pp. 71, 75, 178–82, 204,
209, 234, 238.
Americans’ divisions over slavery were brought into sharp focus in 1858 in the election campaign
that pitted Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas, the North’s most prominent Democratic leader,
against the then little-known Abraham Lincoln.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates, held in seven Illinois towns and attended by tens of thousands of
listeners, remain classics of American political oratory. Clashing definitions of freedom lay at their
heart. To Lincoln, freedom meant opposition to slavery. Douglas insisted that the essence of freedom
lay in local self-government. A large, diverse nation could survive only by respecting the right of
each locality to determine its own institutions. He attempted to portray Lincoln as a dangerous
radical whose positions threatened to degrade white Americans by reducing them to equality with
blacks.
Douglas was reelected. But the campaign created Lincoln’s national reputation.
• • •
DOUGLAS: Do you desire to strike out of our state constitution that clause which keeps slaves and
free negroes out of the state, and allow the free negroes to flow in, and cover your prairies with black
settlements? Do you desire to turn this beautiful state into a free negro colony, in order that when
Missouri abolishes slavery she can send one hundred thousand emancipated slaves into Illinois, to
become citizens and voters, on an equality with yourselves? If you desire negro citizenship, if you
desire to allow them to come into the state and settle with the white man, if you desire them to vote
on an equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to serve on juries, and to adjudge
your rights, then support Mr. Lincoln and the Black Republican party, who are in favor of the
citizenship of the negro. For one, I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form. I believe
this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men, for the benefit of
white men and their posterity for ever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, men
of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians and other inferior races.
Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the little Abolition orators, who go around and
lecture in the basements of schools and churches, reads from the Declaration of Independence, that
all men were created equal, and then asks how can you deprive a negro of that equality which God
and the Declaration of Independence awards to him. He and they maintain that negro equality is
guaranteed by the laws of God, and that it is asserted in the Declaration of Independence. If they
think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln’s
conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother, (laughter), but for
my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother or any
kin to me whatever.
• • •
LINCOLN: Now gentlemen, I don’t want to read at any greater length, but this is the true
complexion of all I have ever said in regard to the institution of slavery and the black race. This is the
whole of it, and anything that argues me into his idea of perfect social and political equality with the
negro, is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse
chestnut to be a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose
directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce
political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference
between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the
footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I,
as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I
have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in
the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of
Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled
to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly
not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without
leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas,
and the equal of every living man.
• • •
DOUGLAS: He tells you that I will not argue the question whether slavery is right or wrong. I tell
you why I will not do it. I hold that under the Constitution of the United States, each state of this
Union has a right to do as it pleases on the subject of slavery. In Illinois we have exercised that
sovereign right by prohibiting slavery within our own limits. I approve of that line of policy. We
have performed our whole duty in Illinois. We have gone as far as we have a right to go under the
Constitution of our common country. It is none of our business whether slavery exists in Missouri or
not. Missouri is a sovereign state of this Union, and has the same right to decide the slavery question
for herself that Illinois has to decide it for herself. (“Good.”) Hence I do not choose to occupy the
time allotted to me discussing a question that we have no right to act upon.
• • •
LINCOLN: The real issue in this controversy—the one pressing upon every mind—is the sentiment
on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another class that
does not look upon it as a wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the institution of slavery in this
country as a wrong is the sentiment of the Republican party. It is the sentiment around which all their
actions—all their arguments circle—from which all their propositions radiate. They look upon it as
being a moral, social and political wrong; and while they contemplate it as such, they nevertheless
have due regard for its actual existence among us, and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any
satisfactory way and to all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet having a due regard for
these, they desire a policy in regard to it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist
that it should as far as may be, be treated as a wrong, and one of the methods of treating it as a wrong
is to make provision that it shall grow no larger. They also desire a policy that looks to a peaceful
end of slavery at sometime, as being wrong. . . .
That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of
Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—
right and wrong—throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from
the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity
and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It
is the same spirit that says, “You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” [Loud applause.] No
matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of
his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for
enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principal. I was glad to express my gratitude at
Quincy, and I re-express it here to Judge Douglas—that he looks to no end of the institution of
slavery. That will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will hereafter place with us all
men who really do wish the wrong may have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog which
obscures the real question—when we can get Judge Douglas and his friends to avow a policy looking
to its perpetuation—we can get out from among them that class of men and bring them to the side of
those who treat it as a wrong. Then there will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its “ultimate
extinction.” Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all extraneous matter thrown out so that
men can fairly see the real difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be settled, and it
will be done peaceably too.
• • •
Questions
1. How do Douglas and Lincoln differ in their views on what rights black Americans ought to
enjoy?
2. What is Douglas’s response to antislavery criticism of slavery in the southern states?
87. South Carolina Ordinance of
Secession (1860)
Source: Frank H. Moore, ed., The Rebellion Record (New York, 1861–68), vol. 1, pp. 3–5.
In the three months that followed Abraham Lincoln’s election as president in November 1860, seven
states seceded from the Union. First to act was South Carolina, the state with the highest percentage
of slaves in its population and a long history of political radicalism. On December 20, 1860, the
legislature unanimously voted to leave the Union. In justifying the right to secede, the legislature
issued an Ordinance of Secession. It restated the compact theory of the Constitution that had become
more and more central to southern political thought during the three decades since the nullification
controversy and placed the issue of slavery squarely at the center of the crisis. Rather than accept
permanent minority status in a nation governed by their opponents, South Carolina’s leaders boldly
struck for their region’s independence. At stake, they believed, was not a single election but an entire
way of life based on slavery.
THE STATE OF South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it
due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she
should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation; and on 17th
September, 1787, these Deputies recommended, for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union,
known as the Constitution of the United States. . . .
Thus was established by compact between the States, a Government with defined objects and
powers, limited to the express words of the grant. . . . We hold that the Government thus established
is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold
further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely, the law of
compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual;
that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the arrangement,
entirely releases the obligation of the other, and that, where no arbiter is provided, each party is
remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.
• • •
We affirm that the ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the
Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States.
Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions, and
have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the
Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery; they have permitted the open
establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace of and eloin
[take away] the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands
of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books,
and pictures, to servile insurrection.
For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid
the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has
found within that article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the
Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of
that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States
whose opinions and purposes are hostile to Slavery. He is to be intrusted with the administration of
the common Government, because he has declared that “Government cannot endure permanently
half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that Slavery is in the course of
ultimate extinction.
This sectional combination for the subversion of the Constitution has been aided, in some of the
States, by elevating to citizenship persons who, by the supreme law of the land are incapable of
becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South,
and destructive of its peace and safety.
On the 4th of March next this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that
the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the Judicial tribunal shall be made
sectional, and that a war must be waged against Slavery until it shall cease throughout the United
States.
The guarantees of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost.
The Slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and
the Federal Government will have become their enemy.
Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation; and all hope of remedy is rendered vain,
by the fact that the public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanctions
of a more erroneous religious belief.
We, therefore, the people of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to
the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the
Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America is dissolved, and
that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world as a
separate and independent state, with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances,
establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.
Questions
1. Why do secessionists place so much emphasis on the growth of antislavery public opinion in
the North?
2. What appears to be the main motivation for South Carolina’s secession?
CHAPTER 14
A New Birth of Freedom: The Civil War,
1861–1865
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
88. Alexander H. Stephens, The Cornerstone of the Confederacy (1861) 273
89. Marcus M. Spiegel, Letter of a Civil War Soldier (1864)
90. Samuel S. Cox Condemns Emancipation (1862)
91. A Defense of the Confederacy (1861)
92. Frederick Douglass on Black Soldiers (1863)
93. Letter by the Mother of a Black Soldier (1863) 288
94. Abraham Lincoln, Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore (1864)
95. Mary Livermore on Women and the War (1883)
88. Alexander H. Stephens, The
Cornerstone of the Confederacy (1861)
Source: Frank H. Moore, ed., The Rebellion Record, vol. 1 (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1861–68),
pp. 45–46.
Alexander H. Stephens, one of Georgia’s most prominent political leaders, opposed secession in the
winter of 1860–1861, but once his state acted, agreed to serve as the vice president of the
Confederacy. In March 1861, he delivered a speech in Savannah that laid out his explanation for the
dissolution of the Union and argued that the Confederate Constitution represented a significant
improvement over that of the United States. After the war, Stephens would write a long book arguing
that the Civil War was caused not by slavery but by a constitutional question—the South’s insistence
on preserving state sovereignty against an overly powerful national government. In his 1861 speech,
however, he forthrightly identified the defense of slavery and of white supremacy as the fundamental
motivation of the Confederacy, the “cornerstone” of the new southern nation. Apparently, Stephens’s
speech embarrassed Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who hoped to gain recognition from
European powers by downplaying the role of slavery in the secession movement.
WE ARE PASSING through one of the greatest revolutions in the annals of the world. Seven States have
within the last three months thrown off an old government and formed a new. This revolution has
been signally marked, up to this time, by the fact of its having been accomplished without the loss of
a single drop of blood.
This new constitution. or form of government, constitutes the subject to which your attention will be
partly invited. In reference to it, I make this first general remark: it amply secures all our ancient
rights, franchises, and liberties. All the great principles of Magna Charta are retained in it. No citizen
is deprived of life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers under the laws of the land.
The great principle of religious liberty, which was the honor and pride of the old constitution, is still
maintained and secured. All the essentials of the old constitution, which have endeared it to the
hearts of the American people, have been preserved and perpetuated. . . . So, taking the whole new
constitution, I have no hesitancy in giving it as my judgment that it is decidedly better than the old.
Allow me briefly to allude to some of these improvements. The question of building up class
interests, or fostering one branch of industry to the prejudice of another under the exercise of the
revenue power, which gave us so much trouble under the old constitution, is put at rest forever under
the new. We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of persons,
in any trade or business, over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same broad
principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left free and unrestricted in whatever
pursuit they may be engaged. . . .
But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one
other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions
relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the
negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present
revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union
would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he
fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The
prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of
the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature;
that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well
how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the
order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not
incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true,
secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be
justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of
the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the
equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell
when the “storm came and the wind blew.”
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its
cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery,
subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is
the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various
departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect
well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past
generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these
errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. . . . They assume that the negro
is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. . . .
I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and
ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would
be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war
successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle
would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a
principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him
was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in
this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as
impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I
admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a
principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal. . . .
As I have stated, the truth of this principle may be slow in development, as all truths are and ever
have been, in the various branches of science. It was so with the principles announced by Galileo it
was so with Adam Smith and his principles of political economy. . . . Now, they are universally
acknowledged. May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal
acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted
upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the
materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the
subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the
laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all of the white race,
however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro.
Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition
which he occupies in our system. . . . By experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior,
but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the
Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His
own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made “one star to differ from
another star in glory.” The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to
His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy
is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the
first builders “is become the chief of the corner” the real “corner-stone” in our new edifice.
Questions
1. What argument does Stephens offer for the idea that blacks are innately suited for the
condition of slaves?
2. Why does Stephens believe the U.S. Constitution is fundamentally flawed?
89. Marcus M. Spiegel, Letter of a Civil
War Soldier (1864)
Source: Marcus M. Spiegel, reproduced from A Jewish Colonel in the Civil War, edited by Jean
Powers Soman and Frank L. Byrne, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright
1985 by The Kent State University Press. Copyright 1994 by Jean P. Soman.
Born into a Jewish family in Germany in 1829, Marcus Spiegel took part in the failed German
revolution of 1848. In the following year, he emigrated to Ohio, where he married the daughter of a
local farmer. He enlisted in the Union army in 1861. He went to war, he wrote to his brother-in-law,
to defend “the flag that was ever ready to protect you and me and every one who sought its
protection from oppression.” Spiegel rose to the rank of colonel in the 120th Ohio Infantry and saw
action in Virginia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. He was an ardent Democrat, who shared the era’s
racist attitudes and thought Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation a serious mistake. Yet, as the
Union army penetrated the heart of the Deep South, Spiegel became increasingly antislavery. Spiegel
died in a minor engagement in Louisiana in May 1864, one of the hundreds of thousands of
Americans to perish in the Civil War.
PLAQUEMINE LA JAN 22/64
My dear Wife, my sweet Cary!
• • •
. . . You must not expect any news inasmuch as this [is] as monotonous a place as ever Millersburg
can be. We are living here right on the Mississippi River and with exception of three or four
Steamboats landing here every day which are called Coast Packets and travel from Baton Rouge to
New Orleans and back, we have no news. When I first came here we had four Regiments of Infantry,
three Batteries of Artillery and one Company of Cavelery. Since then two Regiments of Infantry, the
22nd and 7th Kentucky and two Batteries have been moved to Baton Rouge where they got up a big
scare the other day.
This leaves us the 42nd-Ohio and the 120th Ohio, one Battery and one Company of Cavelery,
sufficient to hold this place against all marauding forces they can bring; we are building a very large
and formidable Fort here. The weather here is beautiful, just like our June; it is very warm and the air
is mild, wholesome and refreshing. I wish to God you could be here. Colonel L. A. Sheldon of the
42nd Ohio is in command here; you know if you remember what I think of him; he commanded our
Brigade last year at Chickasaw and Arkansas Post. Yet he is a very clever man and extremely kind to
me. He has his wife here; she is from Lorain County; a regular build Western Reserve Yankee Girl. I
do not see her often, though very much pressed to call. I saw her twice in four weeks.
Dr. Stanton, Adjutand, Uncle Josey, Sinsheimer and myself spend most of our time together. There
was a report yesterday that there were a lot of Rebels twelve miles from here, so I started out with a
Company of Cavelery. Uncle Josey and Doctor Stanton and my friend Lieutenant Miller (whom you
saw at home) acted as volunteer Aids, but we found “nary Reb” after a hard ride. I managed to get
four dozend Eggs and we came home. We are living in a House all together (i.e. field and Staff); our
boy does the cooking for our Mess. Uncle Josey’s business does not go very well just now; there are
so very few troops here and they have no money and the lines are closed.
I have at present twelve Sergeants in Ohio on the recruiting Service; I do not know how well or
whether at all, they succeed. It takes so long somehow to hear from Ohio and the North generally
that we do not know what is going on. In New Orleans they have news once a week at least but here
it is very irregular.
Captain Moffit sent in his resignation Papers about three months ago and a few days ago they came
back accepted. I am very sorry for them indeed. Since I am here I have learned and seen more of
what the horrors of Slavery was than I ever knew before and I am glad indeed that the signs of the
times show, towards closing out the accursed institution. You know it takes me long to say anything
that sounds antidemocratic and it goes hard, but whether I stay in the Army or come home, I am [in]
favor of doing away with the institution of Slavery. I am willing for the Planters to hire them and in
favor of making the negro work at all events; inasmuch as he is naturally lazy and indolent, but never
hereafter will I either speak or vote in favor of Slavery; this is no hasty conclusion but a deep
conviction. Yet I never mean hereafter to be a politician, but quietly as a good citizen doing duty to
my God, my family, my Country and myself.
Charley has left here about a week ago; I think however he is yet in New Orleans. You must write
me a long, long letter and many of them and ask me ten thousand questions in every one and I will
take them up one by one and answer them. This is the tirest place I ever was at, during my Soldier
life, but the boys are so comfortable and feel so very well that I am not at all anxious to leave here.
We had a negro woman cooking for us when Uncle Josey, Charley and Sinsheimer messed with us,
but it is so far for them and they left us and we discharged our Cook and have only our boy. One of
my men who deserted in Covington and was brought up by the Provost Marshal was tried by a Court
Marshal and sentenced to forfeit all his pay and condemned for six months hard labor on Fort
Espararox [Esperanza], Texas, with a Ball and Chain on his right leg, a very very hard sentence
indeed; I would rather they would have shot him, for death is not so hard as degradation.
I am well and hearty and if I had my dear, dear little family here I would not wish anything better,
but as it is my heart is ever yearning for home, home with all its blessings. I hope you are
comfortable during this extreme awful cold weather, such as I see by the Papers you must have had;
it makes me tremble to think you had to be there without me God grant all was right.
Hamlin must continue to be a good and obedient boy. It is about getting to be a youth and he must
endeavor to learn well and make a man so he can aid and assist his father and mother when they get
old. I hope soon to be at home when I can teach him and help him along. . . .
Questions
1. What do you think Spiegel means by “the horrors of slavery”?
2. Why does he say that his new antislavery viewpoint “goes hard”?
90. Samuel S. Cox Condemns
Emancipation (1862)
Source: Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 2nd Session, Appendix, pp. 242–49.
The abolition of slavery seems so inevitable a result of the American Civil War that it is difficult to
realize how much controversy it aroused at the time, in both the Union and the Confederacy. In 1862,
as the Lincoln administration slowly moved toward ending slavery, most northern Democrats
expressed bitter opposition. Some of their arguments are illustrated in this June speech in Congress
by Samuel S. Cox of Ohio. Cox supported the war effort but insisted that its goal must be the
restoration of the Union “as it was”—that is, with slavery intact. Cox marshaled many arguments
against emancipation, including the claims that it would disrupt the nation’s economy, violate the
Constitution, and alienate many white soldiers. He also invoked racist fears of an influx into the
North of emancipated slaves who, he claimed, would lower wages by competing with white laborers
and become a drain on public resources. Cox’s speech was circulated as a campaign document in the
congressional elections of 1862 when, partly because of fear of the consequences of emancipation,
Democrats made strong gains in the northern states.
THERE IS SOMETHING needed in making successful civil war besides raising money and armies. You
must keep the confidence and spirit of the people. It must not only be animated by a noble passion at
the outset, but it must be sustained by confidence in the cause. . . . Is there a member here who dare
say that Ohio troops will fight successfully or fight at all, if the result shall be the flight and
movement of the black race by millions northward to their own State? . . .
Is it the policy here, as it would seem to be, . . . to [convert] the war into a St. Domingo-insurrection,
turning the South into one utter desolation? . . . We want no more poetry about striking off chains
and bidding the oppressed go. Plain people want to know whether the chains will not be put upon
white limbs, and whither the oppressed are to go. If the industry of the North is to be fettered with
their support; if they are to go to Ohio and the North, we want to know it. Nay, we want, if we can, to
stop it. . . .
Slavery may be an evil, it may be wrong for southern men to use unpaid labor, but what will be the
condition of the people of Ohio when the free jubilee shall have come in its ripe and rotten maturity?
If slavery is bad, the condition of the State of Ohio, with an unrestrained black population . . . will be
far worse. . . . The free negroes will become equal, or will continue unequal to the whites. Equality is
a condition which is self-protective, wanting nothing, asking nothing, able to take care of itself. It is
an absurdity to say that two races as dissimilar as black and white, of different origin, of unequal
capacity, can succeed in the same society when placed in competition. There is no such example in
history of the success of two separate races under such circumstances. . . .
Prejudice, stronger than all principles, though not always stronger than lust, has imperatively
separated the whites from the blacks. In the school-house, the church, or the hospital, the black man
must not seat himself beside the white; even in death and at the cemetery the line of distinction is
drawn. To abolish slavery the North must go still further and forget that fatal prejudice of race which
governs it, and which makes emancipation so illusory. To give men their liberty, to open to them the
gates of the city, and then say, “there, you shall live among yourself, you shall marry among
yourselves, you shall form a separate society in society,” is to create a cursed caste, and replace
slaves by pariahs.
Questions
1. Why does Cox feel that emancipating slaves endangers the liberties of white northerners?
2. What status does he anticipate for the slaves if they are freed?
91. A Defense of the Confederacy (1861)
Source: Drayton Family Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
A South Carolina plantation owner and ardent supporter of secession, Thomas F. Drayton explained
the reasons for his commitment to the Confederate cause in a letter to his brother Percival, an officer
in the U.S. Navy, written from Charleston shortly after the firing on Fort Sumter. The letter insists
that other issues than slavery are at stake in the war, yet most of his accusations against the northern
states seem to revolve around their hostility to slavery. Thomas F. Drayton went on to serve as a
brigadier general in the Confederate army.
My dear Percy
And so Sumter is at last ours, and this too without the loss of a single life upon either side. . . . Before
this dispute is over however, I look for abundance of death & blood. . . .
You say I don’t yet understand the position you have taken. I do fully, but certainly differ from you
when you say that to side with us, would be “battling for slavery against freedom.” On the contrary,
by siding with us, you likewise defend yourselves at the North against a far greater danger than we
are threatened with, which is the enslavement of the whites; for the tendency with you is towards
consolidation & the abrogation of State rights. . . . All these evils & horrors will be laid to your
doors, because you have encouraged . . . in the form of abolition lecturers, fanatical preachers,
unscrupulous editors, selfish politicians; . . . and by voting for men . . . with the avowed object of
abolishing slavery throughout the Southern States . . . who made a merit of John Brown’s murderous
invasion; set at defiance all fugitive slave laws, . . . and whose clergy denounced us indiscriminately
as barbarians. . . .
We are fighting for home & liberty. Can the North say as much? Good night. And don’t say again,
that in siding for us, you would be defending slavery and fighting for what is abhorrent to your
feelings & convictions. On the contrary, in fighting on our side, you will be battling for law & order
& against abstract fanatical ideas which will certainly bring about vastly greater evils upon our race,
than could possibly result from the perpetuation of slavery among us.
Questions
1. Why does Drayton deny that the Confederacy is fighting to defend slavery?
2. How does Drayton appear to define liberty?
92. Frederick Douglass on Black Soldiers
(1863)
Source: Men of Color, to Arms, broadside, Rochester, N.Y., March 21, 1863.
At the beginning of the Civil War, the Union army refused to accept northern black volunteers. But
as casualty rolls expanded, pressure mounted to allow blacks to serve. Although preliminary steps to
enlist combat troops were taken in a few parts of the South in 1862, only after the Emancipation
Proclamation of January 1, 1863, did the recruitment of black soldiers begin in earnest.
Some black units won considerable fame, among them the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, a
company of free blacks from throughout the North commanded by Robert Gould Shaw, a young
reformer from a prominent Boston family. In March 1863, Frederick Douglass called on northern
blacks to volunteer for this unit. “Liberty won by white men would lose half its luster,” he wrote.
Douglass realized that by serving in the army, black men would be placing the question of postwar
black citizenship on the nation’s agenda.
WHEN FIRST THE rebel cannon shattered the walls of Sumter and drove away its starving garrison, I
predicted that the war then and there inaugurated would not be fought out entirely by white men.
Every month’s experience during these dreary years has confirmed that opinion. A war undertaken
and brazenly carried on for the perpetual enslavement of colored men, calls logically and loudly for
colored men to help suppress it. Only a moderate share of sagacity was needed to see that the arm of
the slave was the best defense against the arm of the slaveholder. Hence with every reverse to the
national arms, with every exulting shout of victory raised by the slaveholding rebels, I have implored
the imperiled nation to unchain against her foes, her powerful black hand. Slowly and reluctantly that
appeal is beginning to be heeded. Stop not now to complain that it was not heeded sooner. It may or
it may not have been best that it should not. This is not the time to discuss that question. Leave it to
the future. When the war is over, the country is saved, peace is established, and the black man’s
rights are secured, as they will be, history with an impartial hand will dispose of that and sundry
other questions. Action! Action! not criticism, is the plain duty of this hour. Words are now useful
only as they stimulate to blows. The office of speech now is only to point out when, where, and how
to strike to the best advantage. There is no time to delay. The tide is at its flood that leads on to
fortune. From East to West, from North to South, the sky is written all over, “Now or never.”
Liberty won by white men would lose half its luster. “Who would be free themselves must strike the
blow.” “Better even die free, than to live slaves.” This is the sentiment of every brave colored man
amongst us. There are weak and cowardly men in all nations. We have them amongst us. They tell
you this is the “white man’s war”; that you will be “no better off after than before the war”; that the
getting of you into the army is to “sacrifice you on the first opportunity.” Believe them not; cowards
themselves, they do not wish to have their cowardice shamed by your brave example. Leave them to
their timidity, or to whatever motive may hold them back. I have not thought lightly of the words I
am now addressing you. The counsel I give comes of close observation of the great struggle now in
progress, and of the deep conviction that this is your hour and mine. In good earnest then, and after
the best deliberation, I now for the first time during this war feel at liberty to call and counsel you to
arms. By every consideration which binds you to your enslaved fellow-countrymen, and the peace
and welfare of your country; by every aspiration which you cherish for the freedom and equality of
yourselves and your children; by all the ties of blood and identity which make us one with the brave
black men now fighting our battles in Louisiana and in South Carolina, I urge you to fly to arms, and
smite with death the power that would bury the government and your liberty in the same hopeless
grave. I wish I could tell you that the State of New York calls you to this high honor. For the moment
her constituted authorities are silent on the subject. They will speak by and by, and doubtless on the
right side; but we are not compelled to wait for her. We can get at the throat of treason and slavery
through the State of Massachusetts. She was first in the War of Independence; first to break the
chains of her slaves; first to make the black man equal before the law; first to admit colored children
to her common schools, and she was first to answer with her blood the alarm cry of the nation, when
its capital was menaced by rebels. You know her patriotic governor, and you know Charles Sumner.
I need not add more.
Massachusetts now welcomes you to arms as soldiers. She has but a small colored population from
which to recruit. She has full leave of the general government to send one regiment to the war, and
she has undertaken to do it. Go quickly and help fill up the first colored regiment from the North. I
am authorized to assure you that you will receive the same wages, the same rations, the same
equipments, the same protection, the same treatment, and the same bounty, secured to the white
soldiers. You will be led by able and skillful officers, men who will take especial pride in your
efficiency and success. They will be quick to accord to you all the honor you shall merit by your
valor, and see that your rights and feelings are respected by other soldiers. I have assured myself on
these points, and can speak with authority. More than twenty years of unswerving devotion to our
common cause may give me some humble claim to be trusted at this momentous crisis. I will not
argue. To do so implies hesitation and doubt, and you do not hesitate. You do not doubt. The day
dawns; the morning star is bright upon the horizon! The iron gate of our prison stands half open. One
gallant rush from the North will fling it wide open, while four millions of our brothers and sisters
shall march out into liberty. The chance is now given you to end in a day the bondage of centuries,
and to rise in one bound from social degradation to the plane of common equality with all other
varieties of men. Remember Denmark Vesey of Charleston; remember Nathaniel Turner of
Southampton; remember Shields Green and Copeland, who followed noble John Brown, and fell as
glorious martyrs for the cause of the slave. Remember that in a contest with oppression, the
Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with oppressors. The case is before you. This is our
golden opportunity. Let us accept it, and forever wipe out the dark reproaches unsparingly hurled
against us by our enemies. Let us win for ourselves the gratitude of our country, and the best
blessings of our posterity through all time. The nucleus of this first regiment is now in camp at
Readville, a short distance from Boston. I will undertake to forward to Boston all persons adjudged
fit to be mustered into the regiment, who shall apply to me at any time within the next two weeks.
Questions
1. Why does Douglass believe that black service in the Union army will lead to an expansion of
blacks’ rights in the postwar world?
2. What does Douglass mean when he writes that black soldiers will “wipe out the dark
reproaches” directed at blacks “by our enemies”?
93. Letter by the Mother of a Black Soldier
(1863)
Source: Ira Berlin et al., eds., Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867,
ser. 2 (New York, 1982), pp. 582–83.
Within the Union army, black soldiers were anything but equal to white. Serving in segregated units
and ineligible, until the end of the war, to rise to the rank of commissioned officers, they were
initially paid less than white soldiers. Even more alarming, the Confederacy announced that it would
treat captured black soldiers not as prisoners of war but as fugitives who would be remanded to
slavery.
One of the more remarkable letters of the Civil War era was written to President Lincoln by Hannah
Johnson, the mother of a black soldier. Although, as she notes, she had enjoyed but a “poor
education,” Mrs. Johnson eloquently advised the president to insist that black prisoners be treated the
same as white and resist pressures to rescind the Emancipation Proclamation. The fact that she felt
she had a sympathetic recipient in the White House illustrates the enormous changes American
society was undergoing as a result of the Civil War. Mrs. Johnson did not know that the day before
she wrote the letter, Lincoln had ordered that, for every captured black soldier enslaved, a
Confederate prisoner would be put to hard labor for the duration of the war.
BUFFALO [NEW YORK] JULY 31 1863
Excellent Sir
My good friend says I must write to you and she will send it[.] My son went in the 54th regiment. I
am a colored woman and my son was strong and able to fight for his country and the colored people
have as much to fight for as any. My father was a Slave and escaped from Louisiana before I was
born morn forty years agone[.] I have but poor edication but I never went to schol, but I know just as
well as any what is right between man and man. Now I know it is right that a colored man should go
and fight for his country, and so ought to a white man. I know that a colored man ought to run no
greater risques than a white, his pay is no greater his obligation to fight is the same. So why should
not our enemies be compelled to treat him the same, Made to do it.
My son fought at Fort Wagoner but thank God he was not taken prisoner, as many were[.] I thought
of this thing before I let my boy go but then they said Mr. Lincoln will never let them sell our
colored soldiers for slaves, if they do he will get them back quck[.] he will rettallyate and stop it.
Now Mr. Lincoln dont you think you oght to stop this thing and make them do the same by the
colored men they have lived in idleness all their lives on stolen labor and made savages of the
colored people, but they now are so furious because they are proving themselves to be men, such as
have come away and got some edication. It must not be so. You must put the rebels to work in State
prisons to making shoes and things, if they sell our colored soldiers, till they let them all go. And
give their wounded the same treatment. it would seem cruel, but their [is] no other way, and a just
man must do hard things sometimes, that shew him to be a great man. They tell me some do you will
take back the Proclamation, don’t do it. When you are dead and in Heaven, in a thousand years that
action of yours will make the Angels sing your praises I know it. Ought one man to own another, law
for or not, who made the law, surely the poor slave did not. so it is wicked, and a horrible Outrage,
there is no sense in it, because a man has lived by robbing all his life and his father before him,
should he complain because the stolen things found on him are taken. Robbing the colored people of
their labor is but a small part of the robbery[.] their souls are almost taken, they are made bruits of
often. You know all about this[.]
Will you see that the colored men fighting now, are fairly treated. You ought to do this, and do it at
once, Not let the thing run along meet it quickly and manfully, and stop this, mean cowardly cruelty.
We poor oppressed ones, appeal to you, and ask fair play.
Yours for Christs sake
Hannah Johnson
Questions
1. What is Mrs. Johnson’s opinion of slavery and slaveholders?
2. How would you describe the tone Mrs. Johnson adopts in writing to the president?
94. Abraham Lincoln, Address at Sanitary
Fair, Baltimore (1864)
Source: Abraham Lincoln: Letters and Addresses (New York, 1903), pp. 295–96.
Never was freedom’s contested nature more evident than during the Civil War. Both sides fought in
the name of freedom. “We all declare for liberty,” Lincoln observed in a speech in Baltimore in
1864, “but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.” He went on to explain the
differences between the two sides’ understandings of this word. Lincoln noted that Maryland, a slave
state before the Civil War, had just adopted a new constitution abolishing slavery. And he announced
his intention to investigate reports (later confirmed) that Confederate forces had massacred a number
of black Union soldiers after they surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee. The advance of
emancipation and the service of black troops, for Lincoln, embodied “the advance of liberty.”
THE WORLD HAS never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now,
are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean
the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself,
and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they
please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but
incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the
respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names—liberty and tyranny.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his
liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the
sheep was a black one. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word
liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails to-day among us human creatures, even in the
North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the process by which thousands are daily
passing from under the yoke of bondage hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by
others as the destruction of all liberty. Recently, as it seems, the people of Maryland have been doing
something to define liberty, and thanks to them that, in what they have done, the wolf’s dictionary
has been repudiated.
It is not very becoming for one in my position to make speeches at great length; but there is another
subject upon which I feel that I ought to say a word.
A painful rumor—true, I fear—has reached us of the massacre by the rebel forces at Fort Pillow, in
the west end of Tennessee, on the Mississippi River, of some three hundred colored soldiers and
white officers, who had just been overpowered by their assailants. There seems to be some anxiety in
the public mind whether the government is doing its duty to the colored soldier, and to the service, at
this point. At the beginning of the war, and for some time, the use of colored troops was not
contemplated; and how the change of purpose was wrought I will not now take time to explain. Upon
a clear conviction of duty I resolved to turn that element of strength to account; and I am responsible
for it to the American people, to the Christian world, to history, and in my final account to God.
Having determined to use the negro as a soldier, there is no way but to give him all the protection
given to any other soldier. The difficulty is not in stating the principle, but in practically applying it.
It is a mistake to suppose the government is indifferent to this matter, or is not doing the best it can in
regard to it. We do not to-day know that a colored soldier, or white officer commanding colored
soldiers, has been massacred by the rebels when made a prisoner. We fear it,—believe it, I may say,
—but we do not know it. To take the life of one of their prisoners on the assumption that they murder
ours, when it is short of certainty that they do murder ours, might be too serious, too cruel, a mistake.
We are having the Fort Pillow affair thoroughly investigated; and such investigation will probably
show conclusively how the truth is. If after all that has been said it shall turn out that there has been
no massacre at Fort Pillow, it will be almost safe to say there has been none, and will be none,
elsewhere. If there has been the massacre of three hundred there, or even the tenth part of three
hundred, it will be conclusively proved; and being so proved, the retribution shall as surely come. It
will be matter of grave consideration in what exact course to apply the retribution; but in the
supposed case it must come.
Questions
1. What does Lincoln identify as the essential difference between northern and southern
definitions of freedom?
2. What is the purpose of Lincoln’s metaphor about the wolf and the sheep and their differing
views of liberty?
95. Mary Livermore on Women and the
War (1883)
Source: Mary A. Livermore, What Shall We Do with Our Daughters? (Boston, 1883), pp. 10–16.
The Civil War opened new doors of opportunity for northern women. Some took advantage of the
wartime labor shortage to move into jobs in factories and into previously largely male professions
like nursing. Hundreds of thousands of northern women took part in organizations that gathered
money and medical supplies for soldiers and sent books, clothing, and food to the freedmen. Women
played a leading role in organizing sanitary fairs—grand bazaars that raised money for soldiers’ aid.
The suffrage movement suspended operations during the war to devote itself to the Union and
emancipation. But from the ranks of this wartime mobilization came many of the leaders of the
postwar movement for women’s rights. Mary Livermore, the wife of a Chicago minister, toured
military hospitals to assess their needs, cared for injured and dying soldiers, and organized two
sanitary fairs. She emerged from the war with a deep resentment against women’s legal and political
subordination and organized her state’s first woman suffrage convention. Looking back on her
experience two decades later, Livermore concluded that the spirit of the age was emancipating
women no less than slaves and creating new opportunities in education, employment, and the law.
THE CONTEMPTUOUS OPINION entertained of woman in the past has found expression, not alone in
literature, but also in unjust laws and customs. “In marriage she has been a serf; as a mother she has
been robbed of her children; in public instruction she has been ignored; in labor she has been a
menial, and then inadequately compensated; civilly she has been a minor, and politically she has had
no existence. She has been the equal of man only when punishment, and the payment of taxes, were
in question.”
Born and bred for generations under such conditions of hindrance, it has not been possible for
women to rise much above the arbitrary standards of inferiority persistently set before them. Here
and there through the ages some woman endowed with phenomenal force of character has towered
above the mediocrity of her sex, hinting at the qualities imprisoned in the feminine nature. It is not
strange that these instances have been rare: it is strange, indeed, that women have held their own
during these ages of degradation. . . .
• • •
Humanity has moved forward to an era where wrong and slavery are being displaced, and reason and
justice are being recognized as the rule of life. Science is extending immeasurably the bounds of
knowledge and power; art is refining life, giving to it beauty and grace; literature bears in her hands
whole ages of comfort and sympathy; industry, aided by the hundred-handed elements of nature, is
increasing the world’s wealth; and invention is economizing its labor. The age looks steadily to the
redressing of wrong, to the righting of every form of error and injustice; and a tireless and prying
philanthropy, which is almost omniscient, is one of the most hopeful characteristics of the time. . . .
• • •
It could not be possible in such an era but that women should share in the justice and kindliness with
which the time is fraught. A great wave is lifting them to higher levels. The leadership of the world is
being taken from the hands of the brutal and low, and the race is groping its way to a higher ideal
than once it knew. It is the evolution of this tendency that is lifting women out of their subject
condition, that is emancipating them from the seclusion of the past, and adding to the sum total of the
world’s worth and wisdom, by giving to them the cultivation human beings need. The demand for
their education,—technical and industrial, as well as intellectual,—and for their civil and political
rights, is being urged each year by an increasing host, and with more emphatic utterance.
Colleges, professional schools, and universities, closed against them for ages, are opening to them.
They are invited to pursue the same course of study as their brothers, and are graduated with the
same diplomas. Trades, businesses, remunerative vocations, and learned professions seek them; and
even the laws, which are the last to feel the change in public opinion,—usually dragging a whole
generation behind,—even these are being annually revised and amended, and then they fail to keep
abreast of the advancing civilization.
All this is but prefatory, and prophetic of the time when, for women, law will be synonymous with
justice, and no opportunity for knowledge or effort will be denied them on the score of sex. . . .
• • •
It is for our young women that the great changes of the time promise the most: it is for our daughters,
—the fair, bright girls, who are the charm of society and the delight of home; the sources of infinite
comfort to fathers and mothers, and the sources of great anxiety also. What shall we do with them,—
and what shall they do with and for themselves?
“New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth,”
and the training of fifty years ago is not sufficient for the girls of today. The changed conditions of
life which our young women confront compel greater care and thought on the part of those charged
with their education than has herefore been deemed necessary. They are to be weighted with heavy
duties, and to assume heavier responsibilities; for the days of tutelage seem to be ended for civilized
women, and they are to think and act for themselves.
Questions
1. How does Livermore explain the inequality in status and achievement between men and
women?
2. How does Livermore understand freedom for women?
CHAPTER 15
“What Is Freedom?”: Reconstruction,
1865–1877
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
96. Petition of Black Residents of Nashville (1865)
97. Petition of Committee on Behalf of the Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865)
98. The Mississippi Black Code (1865)
99. A Sharecropping Contract (1866)
100. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Home Life” (ca. 1875)
101. Frederick Douglass, “The Composite Nation” (1869)
102. Robert B. Elliott on Civil Rights (1874)
96. Petition of Black Residents of
Nashville (1865)
Source: Newspaper clipping enclosed in Col. R. D. Mussey to Capt. C. P. Brown, January 23,
1865, Letters Received, ser. 925, Department of the Cumberland, U.S. Army Continental
Commands, National Archives.
At the request of military governor Andrew Johnson, Lincoln exempted Tennessee from the
Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 (although many slaves in the state gained their freedom by
serving in the Union army). In January 1865, a state convention was held to complete the work of
abolition. A group of free blacks of Nashville sent a petition to the delegates, asking for immediate
action to end slavery and granting black men the right to vote (which free blacks had enjoyed in the
state until 1835). The document emphasized their loyalty to the Union, their natural right to freedom,
and their willingness to take on the responsibilities of citizenship. The document offers a revealing
snapshot of black consciousness at the dawn of Reconstruction.
TO THE UNION CONVENTION of Tennessee Assembled in the Capitol at Nashville, January 9th, 1865:
We the undersigned petitioners, American citizens of African descent, natives and residents of
Tennessee, and devoted friends of the great National cause, do most respectfully ask a patient
hearing of your honorable body in regard to matters deeply affecting the future condition of our
unfortunate and long suffering race.
First of all, however, we would say that words are too weak to tell how profoundly grateful we are to
the Federal Government for the good work of freedom which it is gradually carrying forward; and
for the Emancipation Proclamation which has set free all the slaves in some of the rebellious States,
as well as many of the slaves in Tennessee.
After two hundred years of bondage and suffering a returning sense of justice has awakened the great
body of the American people to make amends for the unprovoked wrongs committed against us for
over two hundred years.
Your petitioners would ask you to complete the work begun by the nation at large, and abolish the
last vestige of slavery by the express words of your organic law.
Many masters in Tennessee whose slaves have left them, will certainly make every effort to bring
them back to bondage after the reorganization of the State government, unless slavery be expressly
abolished by the Constitution.
We hold that freedom is the natural right of all men, which they themselves have no more right to
give or barter away, than they have to sell their honor, their wives, or their children.
We claim to be men belonging to the great human family, descended from one great God, who is the
common Father of all, and who bestowed on all races and tribes the priceless right of freedom. Of
this right, for no offence of ours, we have long been cruelly deprived, and the common voice of the
wise and good of all countries, has remonstrated against our enslavement, as one of the greatest
crimes in all history.
We claim freedom, as our natural right, and ask that in harmony and co-operation with the nation at
large, you should cut up by the roots the system of slavery, which is not only a wrong to us, but the
source of all the evil which at present afflicts the State. For slavery, corrupt itself, corrupted nearly
all, also, around it, so that it has influenced nearly all the slave States to rebel against the Federal
Government, in order to set up a government of pirates under which slavery might be perpetrated.
In the contest between the nation and slavery, our unfortunate people have sided, by instinct, with the
former. We have little fortune to devote to the national cause, for a hard fate has hitherto forced us to
live in poverty, but we do devote to its success, our hopes, our toils, our whole heart, our sacred
honor, and our lives. We will work, pray, live, and, if need be, die for the Union, as cheerfully as
ever a white patriot died for his country. The color of our skin does not lessen in the least degree, our
love either for God or for the land of our birth.
We are proud to point your honorable body to the fact, that so far as our knowledge extends, not a
negro traitor has made his appearance since the begining of this wicked rebellion. . . .
Devoted as we are to the principles of justice, of love to all men, and of equal rights on which our
Government is based, and which make it the hope of the world. We know the burdens of citizenship,
and are ready to bear them. We know the duties of the good citizen, and are ready to perform them
cheerfully, and would ask to be put in a position in which we can discharge them more effectually.
We do not ask for the privilege of citizenship, wishing to shun the obligations imposed by it.
Near 200,000 of our brethren are to-day performing military duty in the ranks of the Union army.
Thousands of them have already died in battle, or perished by a cruel martyrdom for the sake of the
Union, and we are ready and willing to sacrifice more. But what higher order of citizen is there than
the soldier? or who has a greater trust confided to his hands? If we are called on to do military duty
against the rebel armies in the field, why should we be denied the privilege of voting against rebel
citizens at the ballot-box? The latter is as necessary to save the Government as the former. . . .
This is not a Democratic Government if a numerous, law-abiding, industrious, and useful class of
citizens, born and bred on the soil, are to be treated as aliens and enemies, as an inferior degraded
class, who must have no voice in the Government which they support, protect and defend, with all
their heart, soul, mind, and body, both in peace and war.
Questions
1. Why do the petitioners place so much emphasis on their loyalty to the Union cause during the
war?
2. What understanding of American history and the nation’s future do the petitioners convey?
97. Petition of Committee on Behalf of the
Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865)
Source: Henry Bram et al. to the President of the United States, October 28, 1865, P-27, 1865,
Letters Received, ser. 15, Washington Headquarters, Freedmen’s Bureau Papers, National
Archives.
By June 1865, some 40,000 freedpeople had been settled on “Sherman land” in South Carolina and
Georgia, in accordance with Special Field Order 15. That summer, however, President Andrew
Johnson, who had succeeded Lincoln, ordered nearly all land in federal hands returned to its former
owners. In October, O. O. Howard, head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, traveled to the Sea Islands to
inform blacks of the new policy.
Howard was greeted with disbelief and protest. A committee drew up petitions to Howard and
President Johnson. Their petition to the president pointed out that the government had encouraged
them to occupy the land and affirmed that they were ready to purchase it if given the opportunity.
Johnson rejected the former slaves’ plea. And, throughout the South, because no land distribution
took place, the vast majority of rural freedpeople remained poor and without property during
Reconstruction.
EDISTO ISLAND S.C. Oct 28th, 1865.
To the President of these United States. We the freedmen of Edisto Island South Carolina have
learned From you through Major General O O Howard commissioner of the Freedmans Bureau. with
deep sorrow and Painful hearts of the possibility of government restoring These lands to the former
owners. We are well aware Of the many perplexing and trying questions that burden Your mind and
do therefore pray to god (the preserver of all and who has through our Late and beloved President
(Lincoln) proclamation and the war made Us A free people) that he may guide you in making Your
decisions and give you that wisdom that Cometh from above to settle these great and Important
Questions for the best interests of the country and the Colored race: Here is where secession was
born and Nurtured Here is were we have toiled nearly all Our lives as slaves and were treated like
dumb Driven cattle, This is our home, we have made These lands what they are we were the only
true and Loyal people that were found in posession of these Lands we have been always ready to
strike for Liberty and humanity yea to fight if needs be To preserve this glorious union. Shall not we
who Are freedman and have been always true to this Union have the same rights as are enjoyed by
Others? Have we broken any Law of these United States? Have we forfieted our rights of property In
Land?—If not then! are not our rights as A free people and good citizens of these United States To
be considered before the rights of those who were Found in rebellion against this good and just
Government (and now being conquered) come (as they Seem) with penitent hearts and beg
forgiveness For past offences and also ask if their lands Cannot be restored to them are these
rebellious Spirits to be reinstated in their possessions And we who have been abused and oppressed
For many long years not to be allowed the Privilege of purchasing land But be subject To the will of
these large Land owners? God forbid, Land monopoly is injurious to the advancement of the course
of freedom, and if Government Does not make some provision by which we as Freedmen can obtain
A Homestead, we have Not bettered our condition.
We have been encouraged by Government to take Up these lands in small tracts, receiving
Certificates of the same—we have thus far Taken Sixteen thousand (16000) acres of Land here on
This Island. We are ready to pay for this land When Government calls for it and now after What has
been done will the good and just government take from us all this right and make us Subject to the
will of those who have cheated and Oppressed us for many years God Forbid!
We the freedmen of this Island and of the State of South Carolina—Do therefore petition to you as
the President of these United States, that some provisions be made by which Every colored man can
purchase land and Hold it as his own. We wish to have A home if It be but A few acres without some
provision is Made our future is sad to look upon yess our Situation is dangerous we therefore look to
you In this trying hour as A true friend of the poor and Neglected race for protection and Equal
Rights with the privilege of purchasing A Homestead—A Homestead right here in the Heart of South
Carolina.
We pray that God will direct your heart in Making such provision for us as freedmen which Will
tend to united these states together stronger Than ever before—May God bless you in the
Administration of your duties as the President Of these United States is the humble prayer Of us all.
—
In behalf of the Freedmen
Henry Bram
Committee
Ishmael Moultrie.
yates. Sampson
Questions
1. How important is it for the petitioners to obtain land on Edisto Island, as opposed to land
elsewhere in the country?
2. What do they think is the relationship between owning land and freedom?
98. The Mississippi Black Code (1865)
Source: Walter L. Fleming, ed., Documentary History of Reconstruction (Cleveland, 1906–07),
vol. 1, pp. 281–90.
During 1865, Andrew Johnson put into effect his own plan of Reconstruction, establishing
procedures whereby new governments, elected by white voters only, would be created in the South.
Among the first laws passed by the new governments were the Black Codes, which attempted to
regulate the lives of the former slaves. These laws granted the freedpeople certain rights, such as
legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts. But they denied them the
right to testify in court in cases that only involved whites, serve on juries or in state militias, or to
vote. And in response to planters’ demands that the freedpeople be required to work on the
plantations, the Black Codes declared that those who failed to sign yearly labor contracts could be
arrested and hired out to white landowners. The Black Codes indicated how the white South would
regulate black freedom if given a free hand by the federal government. But they so completely
violated free labor principles that they discredited Johnson’s Reconstruction policy among northern
Republicans.
VAGRANT LAW
Sec. 2. . . . All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eighteen years,
found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business,
or found unlawfully assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time, and all white
persons so assembling themselves with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating
with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication
with a freed woman, free negro or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall
be fined in a sum not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro, or mulatto, fifty dollars, and a
white man two hundred dollars, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the free negro not
exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months. . . .
Sec. 7. . . . If any freedman, free negro, or mulatto shall fail or refuse to pay any tax levied according
to the provisions of the sixth section of this act, it shall be prima facie evidence of vagrancy, and it
shall be the duty of the sheriff to arrest such freedman, free negro, or mulatto or such person refusing
or neglecting to pay such tax, and proceed at once to hire for the shortest time such delinquent taxpayer to any one who will pay the said tax, with accruing costs, giving preference to the employer, if
there be one.
CIVIL RIGHTS OF FREEDMEN
Sec. 1. . . . That all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes may sue and be sued, implead and be
impleaded, in all the courts of law and equity of this State, and may acquire personal property, and
choses in action, by descent or purchase, and may dispose of the same in the same manner and to the
same extent that white persons may: Provided, That the provisions of this section shall not be so
construed as to allow any freedman, free negro, or mulatto to rent or lease any lands or tenements
except in incorporated cities or towns. . . .
Sec. 2. . . . All freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes may intermarry with each other, in the same
manner and under the same regulations that are provided by law for white persons: Provided, That
the clerk of probate shall keep separate records of the same.
Sec. 3. . . . All freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes who do now and have herebefore lived and
cohabited together as husband and wife shall be taken and held in law as legally married, and the
issue shall be taken and held as legitimate for all purposes; that it shall not be lawful for any
freedman, free negro, or mulatto to intermarry with any white person; nor for any white person to
intermarry with any freedman, free negro, or mulatto; and any person who shall so intermarry, shall
be deemed guilty of felony, and on conviction thereof shall be confined in the State penitentiary for
life; and those shall be deemed freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes who are of pure negro blood,
and those descended from a negro to the third generation, inclusive, though one ancestor in each
generation may have been a white person.
Sec. 4. . . . In addition to cases in which freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes are now by law
competent witnesses, freedmen, free negroes, or mulattoes shall be competent in civil cases, when a
party or parties to the suit, either plaintiff or plaintiffs, defendant or defendants; also in cases where
freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes is or are either plaintiff or plaintiffs, defendant or defendants,
and a white person or white persons, is or are the opposing party or parties, plaintiff or plaintiffs,
defendant or defendants. They shall also be competent witnesses in all criminal prosecutions where
the crime charged is alleged to have been committed by a white person upon or against the person or
property of a freedman, free negro, or mulatto: Provided, that in all cases said witnesses shall be
examined in open court, on the stand; except, however, they may be examined before the grand jury,
and shall in all cases be subject to the rules and tests of the common law as to competency and
credibility.
Sec. 5. . . . Every freedman, free negro, and mulatto shall, on the second Monday of January, one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-six and annually thereafter, have a lawful home or employment,
and shall have written evidence thereof. . . .
Sec. 6. . . . All contracts for labor made with freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes for a longer
period than one month shall be in writing, and in duplicate, attested and read to said freedman, free
negro, or mulatto by a beat, city or county officer, or two disinterested white persons of the county in
which the labor is to be performed, of which each party shall have one; and said contracts shall be
taken and held as entire contracts, and if the laborer shall quit the service of the employer before the
expiration of his term of service, without good cause, he shall forfeit his wages for that year up to the
time of quitting.
Sec. 7. . . . Every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal
employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto who shall have quit the service of his or her employer
before the expiration of his or her term of service without good cause. . . . Provided, that said
arrested party, after being so returned, may appeal to the justice of the peace or member of the board
of police of the county, who, on notice to the alleged employer, shall try summarily whether said
appellant is legally employed by the alleged employer, and has good cause to quit said employer;
either party shall have the right of appeal to the county court, pending which the alleged deserter
shall be remanded to the alleged employer or otherwise disposed of, as shall be right and just; and the
decision of the county court shall be final.
CERTAIN OFFENSES OF FREEDMEN
Sec. 1. . . . That no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States
government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry
firearms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk or bowie knife, and on conviction thereof in the
county court shall be punished by fine, not exceeding ten dollars, and pay the costs of such
proceedings, and all such arms or ammunition shall be forfeited to the informer. . . .
Sec. 2. . . . Any freedman, free negro, or mulatto committing riots, routs, affrays, trespasses,
malicious mischief, cruel treatment to animals, seditious speeches, insulting gestures, language, or
acts, or assaults on any person, disturbance of the peace, exercising the function of a minister of the
Gospel without a license from some regularly organized church, vending spirituous or intoxicating
liquors, or committing any other misdemeanor, the punishment of which is not specifically provided
for by law, shall, upon conviction thereof in the county court, be fined not less than ten dollars, and
not more than one hundred dollars, and may be imprisoned at the discretion of the court, not
exceeding thirty days.
Sec. 3. . . . If any white person shall sell, lend, or give to any freedman, free negro, or mulatto any
fire-arms, dirk or bowie knife, or ammunition, or any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, such person
or persons so offending, upon conviction thereof in the county court of his or her county, shall be
fined not exceeding fifty dollars, and may be imprisoned, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding
thirty days. . . .
Sec. 5. . . . If any freedman, free negro, or mulatto, convicted of any of the misdemeanors provided
against in this act, shall fail or refuse for the space of five days, after conviction, to pay the fine and
costs imposed, such person shall be hired out by the sheriff or other officer, at public outcry, to any
white person who will pay said fine and all costs, and take said convict for the shortest time.
Questions
1. Why do you think the state of Mississippi required all black persons to sign yearly labor
contracts but not white citizens?
2. What basic rights are granted to the former slaves and which are denied to them by the Black
Code?
99. A Sharecropping Contract (1866)
Source: Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Tennessee, Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, National Archives.
Despite the widespread desire for land, few former slaves were able to acquire farms of their own in
the post–Civil War South. Most ended up as sharecroppers, working on white-owned land for a share
of the crop at the end of the growing season. Sharecropping was a kind of compromise between
blacks’ desire for independence from white control and planters’ desire for a disciplined labor force.
This contract, typical of thousands, originated in Shelby County, Tennessee. The laborers signed
with an X, as they were illiterate. Typical of early postwar contracts, it gave the planter the right to
supervise the labor of his employees. Later, sharecropping contracts afforded former slaves greater
autonomy. Families would rent parcels of land, work it under their own direction, and divide the crop
with the owner at the end of the year. But as the price of cotton fell continuously after the Civil War,
workers found it difficult to profit from the sharecropping system.
THOMAS J. ROSS agrees to employ the Freedmen to plant and raise a crop on his Rosstown
Plantation. . . . On the following Rules, Regulations and Remunerations.
The said Ross agrees to furnish the land to cultivate, and a sufficient number of mules & horses and
feed them to make and house said crop and all necessary farming utensils to carry on the same and to
give unto said Freedmen whose names appear below one half of all the cotton, corn and wheat that is
raised on said place for the year 1866 after all the necessary expenses are deducted out that accrues
on said crop. Outside of the Freedmen’s labor in harvesting, carrying to market and selling the same
and the said Freedmen whose names appear below covenant and agrees to and with said Thomas J.
Ross that for and in consideration of one half of the crop before mentioned that they will plant,
cultivate, and raise under the management control and Superintendence of said Ross, in good faith, a
cotton, corn and oat crop under his management for the year 1866. And we the said Freedmen agrees
to furnish ourselves & families in provisions, clothing, medicine and medical bills and all, and every
kind of other expenses that we may incur on said plantation for the year 1866 free of charge to said
Ross. Should the said Ross furnish us any of the above supplies or any other kind of expenses, during
said year, are to settle and pay him out of the net proceeds of our part of the crop the retail price of
the county at time of sale or any price we may agree upon. The said Ross shall keep a regular book
account, against each and every one or the head of every family to be adjusted and settled at the end
of the year.
We furthermore bind ourselves to and with said Ross that we will do good work and labor ten hours
a day on an average, winter and summer. The time to run from the time we commence to the time we
quit. . . . We further agree that we will lose all lost time, or pay at the rate of one dollar per day, rainy
days excepted. In sickness and women lying in childbed are to lose the time and account for it to the
other hands out of his or her part of the crop at the same rates that she or they may receive per
annum.
We furthermore bind ourselves that we will obey the orders of said Ross in all things in carrying out
and managing said crop for said year and be docked for disobedience. All is responsible for all
farming utensils that is on hand or may be placed in care of said Freedmen for the year 1866 to said
Ross and are also responsible to said Ross if we carelessly, maliciously maltreat any of his stock for
said year to said Ross for damages to be assessed out of our wages for said year.
Samuel (X) Johnson, Thomas (X) Richard, Tinny (X) Fitch, Jessie (X) Simmons, Sophe (X) Pruden,
Henry (X) Pruden, Frances (X) Pruden, Elijah (X) Smith
Questions
1. In what ways does the contract limit the freedom of the laborers?
2. What kinds of benefits and risks for the freedpeople are associated with a sharecropping
arrangement?
100. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Home Life”
(ca. 1875)
Source: “Home Life,” manuscript, ca. 1875, Elizabeth Cady Stanton Papers, Library of Congress.
Women activists saw Reconstruction as the moment for women to claim their own emancipation.
With blacks guaranteed equality before the law by the Fourteenth Amendment and black men given
the right to vote by the Fifteenth, women demanded that the boundaries of American democracy be
expanded to include them as well. Other feminists debated how to achieve “liberty for married
women.” In 1875, Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted an essay that demanded that the idea of equality,
which had “revolutionized” American politics, be extended into private life. Genuine liberty for
women, she insisted, required an overhaul of divorce laws (which generally required evidence of
adultery, desertion, or extreme abuse to terminate a marriage) and an end to the authority men
exercised over their wives.
Women’s demand for the right to vote found few sympathetic male listeners. Even fewer supported
liberalized divorce laws. But Stanton’s extension of the idea of “liberty for women” into the most
intimate areas of private life identified a question that would become a central concern of later
generations of feminists.
WE ARE IN the midst of a social revolution, greater than any political or religious revolution, that the
world has ever seen, because it goes deep down to the very foundations of society. . . . A question of
magnitude presses on our consideration, whether man and woman are equal, joint heirs to all the
richness and joy of earth and Heaven, or whether they were eternally ordained, one to be sovereign,
the other slave. . . . Here is a question with half the human family, and that the stronger half, on one
side, who are in possession of the citadel, hold the key to the treasury and make the laws and public
sentiment to suit their own purposes. Can all this be made to change base without prolonged
discussion, upheavings, heartburnings, violence and war? Will man yield what he considers to be his
legitimate authority over woman with less struggle than have Popes and Kings their supposed rights
over their subjects, or slaveholders over their slaves? No, no. John Stuart Mill says the generality of
the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal at the fireside; and here is the secret
of the opposition to woman’s equality in the state and the church—men are not ready to recognize it
in the home. This is the real danger apprehended in giving woman the ballot, for as long as man
makes, interprets, and executes the laws for himself, he holds the power under any system. Hence
when he expresses the fear that liberty for woman would upset the family relation, he acknowledges
that her present condition of subjection is not of her own choosing, and that if she had the power the
whole relation would be essentially changed. And this is just what is coming to pass, the kernel of
the struggle we witness to day.
This is woman’s transition period from slavery to freedom and all these social upheavings, before
which the wisest and bravest stand appalled, are but necessary incidents in her progress to equality.
Conservatism cries out we are going to destroy the family. Timid reformers answer, the political
equality of woman will not change it. They are both wrong. It will entirely revolutionize it. When
woman is man’s equal the marriage relation cannot stand on the basis it is to day. But this change
will not destroy it; as state constitutions and statute laws did not create conjugal and maternal love,
they cannot annual them. . . . We shall have the family, that great conservator of national strength
and morals, after the present idea of man’s headship is repudiated and woman set free. To establish a
republican form of government [and] the right of individual judgment in the family must of necessity
involve discussion, dissension, division, but the purer, higher, holier marriage will be evolved by the
very evils we now see and deplore. This same law of equality that has revolutionized the state and
the church is now knocking at the door of our homes and sooner or later there too it must do its work.
Let us one and all wisely bring ourselves into line with this great law for man will gain as much as
woman by an equal companionship in the nearest and holiest relations of life. . . . So long as people
marry from considerations of policy, from every possible motive but the true one, discord and
division must be the result. So long as the State provides no education for youth on the questions and
throws no safeguards around the formation of marriage ties, it is in honor bound to open wide the
door of escape. From a woman’s standpoint, I see that marriage as an indissoluble tie is slavery for
woman, because law, religion and public sentiment all combine under this idea to hold her true to
this relation, whatever it may be and there is no other human slavery that knows such depths of
degradations as a wife chained to a man whom she neither loves nor respects, no other slavery so
disastrous in its consequences on the race, or to individual respect, growth and development. . . .
• • •
By the laws of several states in this republic made by Christian representatives of the people divorces
are granted to day for . . . seventeen reasons. . . . By this kind of legislation in the several states we
have practically decided two important points: 1st That marriage is a dissoluble tie that may be
sundered by a decree of the courts. 2nd That it is a civil contract and not a sacrament of the church,
and the one involves the other. . . .
A legal contract for a section of land requires that the parties be of age, of sound mind, [and] that
there be no flaw in the title. . . . But a legal marriage in many states in the Union may be contracted
between a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve without the consent of parents or guardians, without
publication of banns. . . . Now what person of common sense, or conscience, can endorse laws as
wise or prudent that sanction acts such as these. Let the state be logical: if marriage is a civil
contract, it should be subject to the laws of all other contracts, carefully made, the parties of age, and
all agreements faithfully observed. . . .
Let us now glance at a few of the popular objections to liberal divorce laws. It is said that to make
divorce respectable by law, gospel and public sentiment is to break up all family relations. Which is
to say that human affections are the result and not the foundation of the canons of the church and
statutes of the state. . . . To open the doors of escape to those who dwell in continual antagonism, to
the unhappy wives of drunkards, libertines, knaves, lunatics and tyrants, need not necessarily
embitter the relations of those who are contented and happy, but on the contrary the very fact of
freedom strengthens and purifies the bond of union. When husbands and wives do not own each
other as property, but are bound together only by affection, marriage will be a life long friendship
and not a heavy yoke, from which both may sometimes long for deliverance. The freer the relations
are between human beings, the happier. . . .
• • •
Home life to the best of us has its shadows and sorrows, and because of our ignorance this must
needs be. . . . The day is breaking. It is something to know that life’s ills are not showered upon us by
the Good Father from a kind of Pandora’s box, but are the results of causes that we have the power to
control. By a knowledge and observance of law the road to health and happiness opens before [us]: a
joy and peace that passeth all understanding shall yet be ours and Paradise regained on earth. When
marriage results from a true union of intellect and spirit and when Mothers and Fathers give to their
holy offices even that preparation of soul and body that the artist gives to the conception of his poem,
statue or landscape, then will marriage, maternity and paternity acquire a new sacredness and dignity
and a nobler type of manhood and womanhood will glorify the race!!
Questions
1. How does Stanton define the “social revolution” the United States underwent after the Civil
War?
2. How does Stanton believe that individual freedom within the family can be established?
101. Frederick Douglass, “The Composite
Nation” (1869)
Source: Philip S. Foner and Daniel Rosenberg, eds., Racism, Dissent, and Asian Americans
from 1850 to the Present (Westport, Conn., 1993), pp. 217–30.
Another group that did not share fully in the expansion of rights inspired by the Civil War and
Reconstruction was Asian-Americans. Prejudices against Asians were deeply entrenched, especially
on the West Coast, where most immigrants from Asia lived. When the radical Republican Charles
Sumner, senator from Massachusetts, moved to allow Asians to become naturalized citizens (a right
that had been barred to them since 1790), senators from California and Oregon objected
vociferously, and the proposal was defeated.
Another advocate of equal rights for Asian-Americans was Frederick Douglass. In his remarkable
“Composite Nation” speech, delivered in Boston in 1869, Douglass condemned anti-Asian
discrimination and called for giving them all the rights of other Americans, including the right to
vote. Douglass’s comprehensive vision of a country made up of people of all races and national
origins and enjoying equal rights was too radical for the time, but it would win greater and greater
acceptance during the twentieth century.
THERE WAS A time when even brave men might look fearfully at the destiny of the Republic. When
our country was involved in a tangled network of contradictions; when vast and irreconcilable social
forces fiercely disputed for ascendancy and control; when a heavy curse rested upon our very soil,
defying alike the wisdom and the virtue of the people to remove it; when our professions were loudly
mocked by our practice and our name was a reproach and a by word to a mocking earth; when our
good ship of state, freighted with the best hopes of the oppressed of all nations, was furiously hurled
against the hard and flinty rocks of derision, and every cord, bolt, beam and bend in her body
quivered beneath the shock, there was some apology for doubt and despair. But that day has happily
passed away. The storm has been weathered, and the portents are nearly all in our favor.
There are clouds, wind, smoke and dust and noise, over head and around, and there will always be;
but no genuine thunder, with destructive bolt, menaces from any quarter of the sky.
The real trouble with us was never our system or form of Government, or the principles under lying
it; but the peculiar composition of our people; the relations existing between them and the
compromising spirit which controlled the ruling power of the country.
We have for a long time hesitated to adopt and may yet refuse to adopt, and carry out, the only
principle which can solve that difficulty and give peace, strength and security to the Republic, and
that is the principle of absolute equality.
We are a country of all extremes, ends and opposites; the most conspicuous example of composite
nationality in the world. Our people defy all the ethnological and logical classifications. In races we
range all the way from black to white, with intermediate shades which, as in the apocalyptic vision,
no man can name a number.
In regard to creeds and faiths, the condition is no better, and no worse. Differences both as to race
and to religion are evidently more likely to increase than to diminish.
We stand between the populous shores of two great oceans. Our land is capable of supporting one
fifth of all the globe. Here labor is abundant and here labor is better remunerated than any where
else. All moral, social and geographical causes, conspire to bring to us the peoples of all other over
populated countries.
Europe and Africa are already here, and the Indian was here before either. He stands to-day between
the two extremes of black and white, too proud to claim fraternity with either, and yet too weak to
with stand the power of either. Heretofore the policy of our government has been governed by race
pride, rather than by wisdom. Until recently, neither the Indian nor the negro has been treated as a
part of the body politic. No attempt has been made to inspire either with a sentiment of patriotism,
but the hearts of both races have been diligently sown with the dangerous seeds of discontent and
hatred.
The policy of keeping the Indians to themselves, has kept the tomahawk and scalping knife busy
upon our borders, and has cost us largely in blood and treasure. Our treatment of the negro has
slacked humanity, and filled the country with agitation and ill-feeling and brought the nation to the
verge of ruin.
Before the relations of these two races are satisfactorily settled, and in spite of all opposition, a new
race is making its appearance within our borders, and claiming attention. It is estimated that not less
than one-hundred thousand Chinamen are now within the limits of the United States. Several years
ago every vessel, large or small, of steam or sail, bound to our Pacific coast and hailing from the
Flowery kingdom, added to the number and strength of this element of our population.
Men differ widely as to the magnitude of this potential Chinese immigration. The fact that by the late
treaty with China, we bind ourselves to receive immigrants from that country only as the subjects of
the Emperor, and by the construction, at least, are bound not to naturalize them, and the further fact
that Chinamen themselves have a superstitious devotion to their country and an aversion to
permanent location in any other, contracting even to have their bones carried back should they die
abroad, and from the fact that many have returned to China, and the still more stubborn that
resistance to their coming has increased rather than diminished, it is inferred that we shall never have
a large Chinese population in America. This however is not my opinion.
It may be admitted that these reasons, and others, may check and moderate the tide of immigration;
but it is absurd to think that they will do more than this. Counting their number now, by the
thousands, the time is not remote when they will count them by the millions. The Emperor’s hold
upon the Chinaman may be strong, but the Chinaman’s hold upon himself is stronger.
Treaties against naturalization, like all other treaties, are limited by circumstances. As to the
superstitious attachment of the Chinese to China, that, like all other superstitions, will dissolve in the
light and heat of truth and experience. The Chinaman may be a bigot, but it does not follow that he
will continue to be one, tomorrow. He is a man, and will be very likely to act like a man. He will not
be long in finding out that a country which is good enough to live in, is good enough to die in; and
that a soil that was good enough to hold his body while alive, will be good enough to hold his bones
when he is dead.
Those who doubt a large immigration, should remember that the past furnishes no criterion as a basis
of calculation. We live under new and improved conditions of migration, and these conditions are
constantly improving. America is no longer an obscure and inaccessible country. Our ships are in
every sea, our commerce in every port, our language is heard all around the globe, steam and
lightning have revolutionized the whole domain of human thought, changed all geographical
relations, make a day of the present seem equal to a thousand years of the past, and the continent that
Columbus only conjectured four centuries ago is now the center of the world.
• • •
I have said that the Chinese will come, and have given some reasons why we may expect them in
very large numbers in no very distant future. Do you ask, if I favor such immigration, I answer I
would. Would you have them naturalized, and have them invested with all the rights of American
citizenship? I would. Would you allow them to vote? I would. Would you allow them to hold office?
I would.
But are there not reasons against all this? Is there not such a law or principle as that of self
preservation? Does not every race owe something to itself? Should it not attend to the dictates of
common sense? Should not a superior race protect itself from contact with inferior ones? Are not the
white people the owners of this continent? Have they not the right to say what kind of people shall be
allowed to come here and settle? Is there not such a thing as being more generous than wise? In the
effort to promote civilization may we not corrupt and destroy what we have? Is it best to take on
board more passengers than the ship will carry?
To all this and more I have one among many answers, altogether satisfactory to me, though I cannot
promise that it will be so to you.
I submit that this question of Chinese immigration should be settled upon higher principles than
those of a cold and selfish expediency. There are such things in the world as human rights. They rest
upon no conventional foundation, but are external, universal, and indestructible. Among these, is the
right of locomotion; the right of migration; the right which belongs to no particular race, but belongs
alike to all and to all alike. It is the right you assert by staying here, and your fathers asserted by
coming here. It is this great right that I assert for the Chinese and the Japanese, and for all other
varieties of men equally with yourselves, now and forever. I know of no rights of race superior to the
rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is
safe to go to the side of humanity. I have great respect for the blue eyes and light haired races of
America. They are a mighty people. In any struggle for the good things of this world they need have
no fear. They have no need to doubt that they will get their full share.
But I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they would limit migratory rights, or any other
essential human rights to themselves, and which would make them the owners of this great continent
to the exclusion of all other races of men.
I want a home here not only for the negro, the mulatto and the Latin races; but I want the Asiatic to
find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours. Right
wrongs no man. If respect is had to majorities, the fact that only one fifth of the population of the
globe is white, the other four fifths are colored, ought to have some weight and influence in
disposing of this and similar questions. It would be a sad reflection upon the laws of nature and upon
the idea of justice, to say nothing of a common Creator, if four-fifths of mankind were deprived of
the rights of migration to make room for the one fifth. If the white race may exclude all other races
from this continent, it may rightfully do the same in respect to all other lands, islands, capes and
continents, and thus have all the world to itself. Thus what would seem to belong to the whole, would
become the property only of a part. So much for what is right, now let us see what is wise.
And here I hold that a liberal and brotherly welcome to all who are likely to come to the United
States is the only wise policy which this nation can adopt.
• • •
I close these remarks as I began. If our action shall be in accordance with the principles of justice,
liberty, and perfect human equality, no eloquence can adequately portray the greatness and grandeur
of the future of the Republic.
We shall spread the network of our science and civilization over all who seek their shelter whether
from Asia, Africa, or the Isles of the sea. We shall mold them all, each after his kind, into
Americans; Indian and Celt, negro and Saxon, Latin and Teuton, Mongolian and Caucasian, Jew and
Gentile, all shall here bow to the same law, speak the same language, support the same government,
enjoy the same liberty, vibrate with the same national enthusiasm, and seek the same national ends.
Questions
1. What does Douglass mean by the term “composite nationality”?
2. Why does he believe that people should be allowed to move freely from one country to
another?
102. Robert B. Elliott on Civil Rights (1874)
Source: Civil Rights. Speech of Hon. Robert B. Elliott, of South Carolina, in the House of
Representatives, January 6, 1874 (Washington, D.C., 1874), pp. 1–8.
One of the South’s most prominent black politicians during Reconstruction, Robert B. Elliott appears
to have been born in England and arrived in Boston shortly before the Civil War. He came to South
Carolina in 1867, where he established a law office and was elected as a delegate to the state’s
constitutional convention of 1868. During the 1870s, he served in the legislature and was twice
elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
In January 1874, Elliott delivered a celebrated speech in Congress in support of the bill that became
the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The measure outlawed racial discrimination in transportation and
places of public accommodation like theaters and hotels. Thanks to the Civil War and
Reconstruction, Elliott proclaimed, “equality before the law” regardless of race had been written into
the laws and Constitution and had become an essential element of American freedom.
Reconstruction, he announced, had “settled forever the political status of my race.”
Elliott proved to be wrong. By the turn of the century, many of the rights blacks had gained after the
Civil War had been taken away. It would be left to future generations to breathe new life into
Elliott’s dream of “equal, impartial, and universal liberty.”
SIR, IT IS scarcely twelve years since that gentleman [Alexander H. Stephens] shocked the civilized
world by announcing the birth of a government which rested on human slavery as its corner-stone.
The progress of events has swept away that pseudo-government which rested on greed, pride, and
tyranny; and the race whom he then ruthlessly spurned and trampled on are here to meet him in
debate, and to demand that the rights which are enjoyed by their former oppressors—who vainly
sought to overthrow a Government which they could not prostitute to the base uses of slavery—shall
be accorded to those who even in the darkness of slavery kept their allegiance true to freedom and
the Union: Sir, the gentleman from Georgia has learned much since 1861; but he is still a laggard.
Let him put away entirely the false and fatal theories which have so greatly marred an otherwise
enviable record. Let him accept, in its fullness and beneficence, the great doctrine that American
citizenship carries with it every civil and political right which manhood can confer. Let him lend his
influence, with all his masterly ability, to complete the proud structure of legislation which makes
this nation worthy of the great declaration which heralded its birth, and he will have done that which
will most nearly redeem his reputation in the eyes of the world, and best vindicate the wisdom of that
policy which has permitted him to regain his seat upon this floor. . . .
• • •
Sir, equality before the law is now the broad, universal, glorious rule and mandate of the Republic.
No State can violate that. Kentucky and Georgia may crowd their statute-books with retrograde and
barbarous legislation; they may rejoice in the odious eminence of their consistent hostility to all the
great steps of human progress which have marked our national history since slavery tore down the
stars and stripes on Fort Sumter; but, if Congress shall do its duty, if Congress shall enforce the great
guarantees which the Supreme Court has declared to be the one pervading purpose of all the recent
amendments, then their unwise and unenlightened conduct will fall with the same weight upon the
gentlemen from those States who now lend their influence to defeat this bill, as upon the poorest
slave who once had no rights which the honorable gentlemen were bound to respect. . . .
No language could convey a more complete assertion of the power of Congress over the subject
embraced in the present bill than is expressed [in the Fourteenth Amendment]. If the States do not
conform to the requirements of this clause, if they continue to deny to any person within their
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, or as the Supreme Court had said, “deny equal justice in
its courts,” then Congress is here said to have power to enforce the constitutional guarantee by
appropriate legislation. That is the power which this bill now seeks to put in exercise. It proposes to
enforce the constitutional guarantee against inequality and discrimination by appropriate legislation.
It does not seek to confer new rights, nor to place rights conferred by State citizenship under the
protection of the United States, but simply to prevent and forbid inequality and discrimination on
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Never was there a bill more completely
within the constitutional power of Congress. Never was there a bill which appealed for support more
strongly to that sense of justice and fair-play which has been said, and in the main with justice, to be
a characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Constitution warrants it; the Supreme Court sanctions
it; justice demands it.
Sir, I have replied to the extent of my ability to the arguments which have been presented by the
opponents of this measure. I have replied also to some of the legal propositions advanced by
gentlemen on the other side; and now that I am about to conclude, I am deeply sensible of the
imperfect manner in which I have performed the task. Technically, this bill is to decide upon the civil
status of the colored American citizen; a point disputed at the very formation of our present
Government, when by a short-sighted policy, a policy repugnant to true republican government, one
negro counted as three-fifths of a man. The logical result of this mistake of the framers of the
Constitution strengthened the cancer of slavery, which finally spread its poisonous tentacles over the
southern portion of the body-politic. To arrest its growth and save the nation we have passed through
the harrowing operation of intestine war, dreaded at all times, resorted to at the last extremity, like
the surgeon’s knife, but absolutely necessary to extirpate the disease which threatened with the life of
the nation the overthrow of civil and political liberty on this continent. In that dire extremity the
members of the race which I have the honor in part to represent—the race which pleads for justice at
your hands to-day, forgetful of their inhuman and brutalizing servitude at the South, their
degradation and ostracism at the North—flew willingly and gallantly to the support of the national
Government. Their sufferings, assistance, privations, and trials in the swamps and in the rice-fields,
their valor on the land and on the sea, is a part of the ever-glorious record which makes up the history
of a nation preserved, and might, should I urge the claim, incline you to respect and guarantee their
rights and privileges as citizens of our common Republic. But I remember that valor, devotion, and
loyalty are not always rewarded according to their just deserts, and that after the battle some who
have borne the brunt of the fray may, through neglect or contempt, be assigned to a subordinate
place, while the enemies in war may be preferred to the sufferers.
The results of the war, as seen in reconstruction, have settled forever the political status of my race.
The passage of this bill will determine the civil status, not only of the negro, but of any other class of
citizens who may feel themselves discriminated against. It will form the cap-stone of that temple of
liberty, begun on this continent under discouraging circumstances, carried on in spite of the sneers of
monarchists and the cavils of pretended friends of freedom, until at last it stands in all its beautiful
symmetry and proportions, a building the grandest which the world has ever seen, realizing the most
sanguine expectations and the highest hopes of those who, in the name of equal, impartial, and
universal liberty, laid the foundation stones.
Questions
1. How does Elliott defend the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Bill?
2. Why does Elliott refer to the “cornerstone speech” of Alexander H. Stephens in making his
argument?